Sisyranthus. | ASCLEPIADE (Brown). 787 
broadly cuneate and 3-toothed, with the lateral teeth very small 
and the middle tooth large, acute (rarely bifid), or prolonged into a 
subulate or filiform point, erect or the points incurved or connivent. 
Stamens arising from the base of the corolla, their filaments connate 
into a tube around the ovary and adnate.to the top of the dilated 
part of the style; anthers free, erect, without an appendage, but 
often ciliate with long hairs at the apex. Pollen-masses solitary 
and erect in each cell, pellucid across the top, attached in pairs to 
the pollen-carriers by short caudicles. Style not exceeding or shorter 
than the anthers, depressed or concave at the apex. Follicles rather 
slender, narrowly fusiform, tapering into a beak, smooth. Seeds 
(not seen ripe), crowned by a tuft of hairs. 
Erect herbs ; rootstook a cluster of long thick fleshy roots ; stem rather slender, 
usually simple ; leaves long, linear, in distant pairs, those of the lowest 2-4 nodes 
very much reduced or rudimentary and closely adpressed to the stem ; flowers in 
umbels, lateral and pedunculate or terminal and subsessile. 
Distris. Species 11, endemic. With the exception of S. trichostomus, 
S. compactus, and S. anceps, which are the most distinct in habit, the species of 
this genus are very much alike and cannot be determined without dissection. 
Corolla-lobes with hairs all over their inner face or at 
least extending to their base near the margins, and 
the throat and mouth of the tube bearded with 
hairs 
Umbels racemosely scattered along the stem, somewhat 
distant ; corona-lobes exceeding and connivent or 
incurved over the tops and hairs of the anthers: 
Corona-lobes reaching to or shortly exserted from the 
mouth of the corolla-tube shi fee ... (1) Saundersia. 
Corona-lobes not nearly reaching to the mouth of the 
corolla-tube : 
Entire corolla 24 lin. long ; anthers broader than 
long, transversely elliptic-oblong, ciliate with 
very few hairs at the apex... ae ... (3) virgatus. 
Entire corolla not more than 2 lin. long ; anthers 
longer than broad, oblong, densely ciliate 
with rather long hairs at the apex ... ... (4) barbatus. 
Umbels clustered or crowded into a head at the top of 
the stem or the lowest distant ; corona-lobes shorter 
than the anthers or scarcely exceeding the hairs at 
their tips ; entire corolla 13-2 lin. long ... _... (5) compactus. 
Corolla-lobes hairy at the tips or apical half, glabrous 
on the lower half of the inner face ; mouth and throat 
of the tube bearded with hairs : 
Stem 2-edged ; umbels crowded or 1 distant ; corona- 
lobes with long filiform points much exceeding the 
anthers and reaching to or exserted from the 
mouth of the corolla-tube ... re see .-» (2) anceps, 
Stem terete ; umbels all distant ; corona-lobes with a 
short inflexed point not exceeding the anther-tips 
and not or scarcely reaching to the mouth of the a 
corolla-tube ... 0... os +++ (6) reer 
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