346 Bickxell: Studies in Sisvrixchium 



Mr. Bush writes me in regard to this plant that it grows m 

 open Black Jack woods on the borders of prairies, while 5. angus- 

 tifolmm (5. cainpcstre) grows on bare prairies and S. graminoidcs 

 in wet meadows. It does not occur with either of the other two 

 species and only occurs in two or three localities near here, Court- 

 ney, Mo. 



L 



. SiSYRixcHiuM ALBiDUM Raf. Atl. Jour. 17. 1832. 



Dull or rather bright green, the spathes often tinged with dull 

 red-purple, glaucous or glaucescent, commonly 30 cm. or less 

 high (15-46 cm.). Leaves about half the height of the stem, 

 mostly 1.5 mm. wide (.5-3.5 mm.), very acute, smooth-edged, but 

 often serrulate above or sometimes throughout : stems commonly 

 1.5 mm. wide (1-3 mm.), often very flat, the wings thin and striate, 

 usually broader than the proper stem, serrulate or hispidulous on 

 the edges or sometimes smooth : spathes two, contiguous and 

 sessile at the top of the stem or rarely the outer one pedunculate 

 on a short divergent branch, each two-bracted ; primary bract 

 2.5-7 ^^^^ lo^g» foliaceous or slenderly attenuate, acute or obtuse, 

 surpassing the Inner bracts 1.2-5 cm. the edges free to the base 

 and scarcely hyaline ; outer bract of second spathe 1.3— 2.7 cm, 

 long, hyaline-margined, the tip herbaceous, sometimes obtuse, but 

 usually acute or attenuate, subequal with its fellow or surpassing 

 it by as much as \2 mm.; keels of inner bracts often ciliolate ; 

 interior scales about three quarters the length of the shorter bracts - 

 flowers varying from clear white to violet-blue, sometimes as 

 many as nine in each spathe ; perianth 8-12 mm. long ; stamineal 

 column 4-5 mm. high : capsules pale, rather thick walled, de- 

 pressed-subglobose, 2-3 mm. high on slender, erect, or slightly 

 spreading pedicels 10-22 mm. long, little if at all longer than the 

 shorter bracts : seeds black, globose, prominently umbillcate, dis- 

 tinctly pitted .75-1 mm. In diameter. 



Alabama and Louisiana to Missouri and Michigan ; North Caro- 

 lina. Flowering in early April in the extreme south, in April and 



Ma> 



J 





i 



Alabama : Tuscaloosa Co., Dr. E. A. Smith. 

 Mississippi : Oktibbeha Co., S. M. Tracy. 

 Louisiana : Dr. Hale. ■ 

 Tennessee : Sewanee, E. Kirby Smith. 

 North Carolina : Stanly Co., W. W. Ashe. 

 Kentucky: Dr. C. W. Short (1840); 



Warren Co., Miss Sadie 



t 



/ 



F. Price. 



