533 
sometimes an opposite bud also forms, but fails to develop. In 
late summer the primary bud is well developed and encloses the - 
next season’s flower and leaves perfectly formed. 
Two instances of dimerous flowers have been observed, and 
it is recorded by Decainse (D.C. Prod. 15: 424), that tetramerous 
flowers are not rare. Occasionally the plant develops undersized 
leaves which are oblong with rounded or slightly cordate base, or 
even decurrent into the petiole. 
“ ASARUM REFLEXUM N. sp. 
Rootstock slender and elongated, 1.-4.5 dm. long, about 4 
mm. thick, or shorter and stouter in one form of the plant, its 
branches usually slender and remotely alternate, often elongated 
and again branched; internodes 4-10 cm. long, little if at all 
contracted at the joints, glabrous, the bract scars prominent, the 
uppermost distant ; roots fewer and more slender than in Cana- 
dense, more scattered, or borne mainly at the forward ends of the 
internodes ; bracts narrower and more acute than in Canadense, 
less pubescent, more or less separated or distant, early spreading 
and deciduous ; leaves broader than long, varying from reniform 
and lunate-reniform with a shallow open sinus to suborbicular 
with a deep sinus, obtusely pointed, broadly acute or rounded at 
the apex, darker green, thinner and less rugose than in Canadense, 
commonly nearly glabrous above and with a satiny lustre, some- 
what shining on the lower surface through the thin or sometimes 
close pubescence of minute hairs; a common size of the leaves 
is 10 cm. wide, by 8 cm. or less long on petioles 1.5 dm. long, an 
extreme size 1.7 dm. wide on petioles 2. dm. long ; at vernation 
the petioles are relatively longer than in Canadense ; petioles slen- 
der, 3~4 mm. thick, loosely or thinly tortuose-pubescent with 
slightly longer and softer hairs than in Canadense, somewhat shin- 
ing on the outer surface and mostly glabrous towards the base 
except along the villous-pubescent inner margins, often nearly glab- 
rous throughout in age; flowers smaller than those of Cana- 
dense, 8-20 mm. long, 7-14 mm. wide, spreading 16-26 mm. 
across the extended lobes, the tube 4-8 mm. high, at anthesis on 
slender ascending or erect peduncles, at maturity mostly spreading 
or reclined on peduncles 3.8-5 cm. long; the ovary from the first 
about the length of the calyx-tube ; limb early réflexed, in age 
sometimes ascending, the lobes 8-10 mm. long, about the length 
of the tube, flattish and rather brittle, triangular in outline, ending 
abruptly in a straight obtuse point 2-4 mm. long ; opening of 
the flower commonly more or less triangular ; rudimentary petals 
