SOUTH AMERICAN BOTANY. 19 
formis, longitudine staminum, apice inflexus. Stigma sublaterale 
subliguliformi-capitatum. Fructus e calyce incrassato et demum 
indurato nucumentaceus, lignosus, turbinatus, 5-gonus, vertice 
depresso, et stylo perforato, angulis inæqualiter elongatis, spinis- 
que 2-3 longis interdum terminatis. Carceru/a omnino inclusa, 
libera, chartacea, indehiscens, 2-locularis, loculis. monospermis 
(uno antico, altero postico). Semen inversum, obovatum, ex 
apice pendulum : ¢esta tenuis, chalaza apicali rapheque longi- 
tudinali sublaterali notata : embryo in axi albuminis carnosi paulo 
incurvatus, cotyledonibus oblongis, compressis, crassiusculis, radi- 
cula brevi tereti supera, 2-plo latioribus, et 3-plo longioribus. Her- 
bæ prostrate, Americe intertropice indigene ; caulibus plurimis, 
angulatis, flexuosis, divaricatim ramosis : foliis geminatis, spathu- 
lato-oblongis, cum petiolo continuis; floribus axillaribus binis, 
[1 precociore], insertione petiolorum fere sessilibus, ebracteatis ; 
fructibus deflexis, plerumque ad axillas deformatim concretis, nodos 
tumescentes et spinescentes formantibus. 
l. Sclerophylax spinescens : prostrata, caulibus humifusis, dif- 
fusis, nodis spinescentibus : foliis geminatis spathulato-oblongis, 
subcarnosulis, glaberrimis, eveniis, margine tenui integris ; flori- 
bus folio florifero brevioribus, omnino glabris, calycis lobis tri- 
quetro-subulatis, carnosulis, angulis membranaceis demum spi- 
nescentibus.—Arroyuelo de San Josè, Prov. Cordovæ, in uligi- 
nosis salitrosis. v. v. 
This species was found by me in the locality above quoted, 
growing abundantly on the margin of saline swamps, and is pro- - P ? 
bably diffused over the Pampas in similar situations, as I findin 
Sir William Hooker’s Herbarium, specimens collected by Tweedie, 
from the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres. The branches, dicho- 
tomously ramifying at each axil, spread out to the length of about 
eighteen inches ; the stems are angular and herbaceous ; the leaves, 
including the des are about the length of the internodes, one 
and a quarter, to one and a half, sometimes two inches; they are — 
oblong, scarcely acute at the apex, tapering towards the base into —— 
a petiole of the length of the blade, which is three lines broad ; 
se "" are pomala fleshy, the main a. mehin, as well as a yey, fon, S. 
