The Species of Texas and the Southwest 581 



The type is stout, stiff and glaucous, with ensiform attenuate 

 leaves and rather large pale flowers, the node borne about midway 

 in the height of the plant, the outer stems somewhat outcurved 

 and geniculate. Other forms, several of which came from the 

 vicinity of Austin, are taller, more slender and erect, the node 

 much above the middle, and with weaker stems and leaves, nar- 

 rower spathes and smaller flowers. A specimen collected by Heller 

 on bluffs along the Colorado at Austin is tall and slender-branched 

 and bears numerous slender peduncles and narrow spathes ; the 

 leaves vary from very narrow to over 5 mm. wide. 



Apparently also to be referred here is a single specimen col- 

 lected by Prof. W. L. Bray at San Angeles " on dry soil among 

 extreme xerophytes " which is low, with narrow, rigid leaves and 

 small spathes, the bracts mostly scarious-obtuse, the inner one 

 mostly the longer, and small flowers. 



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12. Sisyrinchium amethystinum 



From 1 5-45 cm. high, pale green or glaucescent, scarcely dis- 

 coloring when dry, roots slender, becoming slightly thickened, 

 more or less fibrillate, leaves often numerous, the longer ones some- 

 times three-quarters the height of the stem, erect, stiffish, many- 

 nerved, smooth-edged, or, when young, ciliolate-serrulate above, 

 I- 5-4 mm. wide, acute, the extreme tip becoming cartilaginous: 

 stem 1-2.5 mm. wide, the narrowly keeled edges smooth or with 

 distant membranous serrulations, node mostly only one, bearing 

 1-3 long and slender, erectly diverging, mostly unequal peduncles 

 much surpassing the nodal leaves ; peduncles 6-18 cm. long, some- 

 times as long as the stem, mostly 1 mm. or less wide, smooth or 

 slightly serrulate ; bracts subequal or the outer one sometimes 

 herbaceously prolonged ; inner bract narrowed above, acuminate 

 to scarious obtuse, 1 5-23 mm. long, outer bract rather broadly 

 white hyaline on the edges below, united-clasping for 5-8 mm., 

 the keels often ciliolate-serrulate, acute or attenuate ; scales over 

 half the length of the inner bract ; flowers purplish-violet on the 

 herbarium sheet, large ; perianth 12-15 mm. long, the segments 

 very abruptly short aristulate or emarginate, column 6-8 mm high ; 

 anthers about 1.5 mm. long ; pedicels slender, erect, distinctly ex- 

 serted, becoming 17-25 mm. long ; ovary and young capsule puber- 

 ulent; capsules pale, subglobose or obovoid, 4-5 mm. high ; the 

 valves without lateral nerves; seeds not fully mature but evidently 

 becoming rather large, 1-2 mm. in longer diameter, rugulose. 



