The Species of Texas and the Southwest 571 



Owing to the present insufficiency of material perhaps no one 

 of the species here described can be held to be well understood. 

 Nevertheless I entertain not the least doubt that, with one or two 

 possible exceptions, all the species here recognized are perfectly 

 distinct. Indeed there is much reason to believe that several of 

 them will be found to include more than one species. Until both 

 flowers and fruit of all can be studied comparatively, many questions 

 of this kind must remain unanswered. On account of the present 

 insufficiency of material, also, the appended "key" must be re- 

 garded as wholly tentative. It is, in fact, extremely unsatisfactory, 

 and is offered more as a help to the determination of those species 

 which announce themselves by unmistakable characters rather than 

 as a certain index to all. 



The noteworthy Sisyrincliium Arizoniatm Rothrock * is not in- 

 cluded in this treatment for the reason that it deviates so widely 

 from true Sisyrincliium as understood in this series of papers that 

 I am obliged to regard it as the type of a distinct genus. For this 

 species, therefore, as well as for the allied 5. platyphyllitm Watson f 

 of Mexico a new apmis mav he nmnosed to be called Oreolirion. 



Key to the Sisyrinchia of Texas and ine Southwest 



Stem normally simple and scapose, with terminal spathe or spathes. 



Filaments distinct at top of stamen-tube ; both bracts of spathe foliaceous. 



I. S. exile. 



9 



Filaments completely united ; inner bract of spathe not foliaceous. 



Scapes straight, more or less distinctly flattened and winged or margined. 



Spathes solitary. 



Plant pale and glaucous ; inner scales half the length of bracts or 



1 



ess. 



2. S. cam pest re 



Plant not glaucous, drying dark ; inner scales equalling the shorter 

 bract or nearly so. 3- & sagittiferum. 



Spathes two together. 



Plant not glaucous, drying dark ; inner scales equalling the second 



bract or nearly so. 3- & sagittiferum. 



Plant more or less glaucous, not drying dark ; inner scales much 

 shorter than second bract. 4- & albidum. 



Scapes wiry, flexuous and subterete, narrowly margined (sometimes branched); 

 spathes subterete below. 5- •& *>i forme. 



Stem normally branched or bearing terminal peduncles. 

 Hants erect or erectly ascending. 



Sisyrincliium Arizonicum Rothrock, Bot. Gaz. 2 : 125. 1877. 

 t Sisyrincliium platyphyllitm S. Watson, Proc. Amer. Acad. 26 : 155- l8 9 x 



