Bicknell: Studies in Sisyrlnxiiioi 339 



Park, Wolf and Rothrock ; Lorimer Co., 9,000 ft., Crandall ; La 

 Plata Mts., 9,000 ft., Baker, Earle and Tracy. 



SiSYRiNCHiUM MUCRONATUM Michx. Fh Bor. Am. 2: ^S- 1S03. 



Caespitosc in close tufts often loosely invested below with the 

 tangled and fibrillose remains of withered leaves; roots numerous 

 and matted, very slender. Leaves and stems dull-green to 

 glaucescent, slender, the leaves commonly half the height 01 

 the stem, but sometimes equaling it, varying from capillaceous to 2 

 nim. wade, taper-pointed, smooth-edged or minutely denticulate or 

 serrulate. Stems numerous, 10-46 cm. tall, varying from capilla- 

 ceous and merely margined to 1.5 mm. wide and narrowly winged, 

 the edges very smooth to denticulate-roughened, simple or occa- 

 sionally short-branched at the top ; spathes straight or slightly 

 bent, the thin bracts smooth or, exceptionally, obscurel)' scabrous, 

 usually or often bright red-purple, but varying to green, narrowly 

 Iryahne-margined, the outer one 1.8-5.7 cm. long, united-clasping 

 for 1-4 mm. at base, the slender prolongation surpassing the in- 

 ner bract 4-28 mm.; inner bract emerging gradually from the 

 outer one, 10-16 mm. lonji, herbaceous, attenuate and acute, or 

 the ape.x obtuse and scarious or even bifid ; interior scales narrow 

 and attenuate, mostly about half the length of the inner bract. 

 Flowers 2-7, mostly deep purple-blue, sometimes white; perianth 

 6-14 mm. long; stamineal-column 4-5 mm. high: capsules on 

 slender somewhat spreading pedicels 1-2 cm. long, 2-4 mm. high, 

 trigonous, subglobose, broadly oblong, or somewhat obovate, not 

 impressed at base, sometimes even narrowed into the pedicel, thin- 

 walled, pale but usuall}- purplish -tinged at maturity; seeds sub- 

 globose, black, pitted and prominently umbilicate, 1-1.2 mm. in 

 diameter. 



Southeastern Michigan and Ontario to eastern Pennsylvania, 

 Washington, D. C, and Virginia, in meadows and grassy places or 

 sometimes in dry soil. Flowers in May and June, beginning about 



Ma\ 



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iMichigan : St. Clair Co., C. K. Dodge ; Ontario : Lambton 

 Co., C. K. Dodge, Wingham, J. A. xMorton ; New York : Ithaca, 

 Herb. Cornell Univ.; Pennsylvania : Union Co., H. R. Noll ; Mon- 

 roe Co., N. L. Britton, E. P. B.; Pike Co., E. P. B.; Philadelphia, 

 A. B. Monoy; Isaac P. Martendale (1872); Washington, D. C: 

 Lester F. Ward, G. McCarthy ; Virginia : Dyke, T. H. Kearney, Jr. 



It is at last possible to understand this long misdoubted species 



