CALIFORNIA, 47 
Plate XXII. fig. 1, involucre ; fig. 2, separate flower and bractea; fig. 3, portion of the perigon 
laid open ; fig. 4, ovary; fig. 5, fruit enclosed in the persistent perigon; fig. 6, separate fruit; all 
magnified. 
160. Rumex erispus, Linn.—San Pedro. 
161. AntiGonon leptopus, Hook. et Arn. Bot. Beech, p. 308. t. 69.—San Lucas, 
This curious genus, established by Endlicher, and placed by him next to 
Brunnichia, is in fact closely allied to that genus, although some slight inaccu- 
racies or imperfections in the descriptions published have induced C. A. Meyer, 
in his arrangement of Polygonacee, to doubt even whether it should belong to 
the same order. The habit and inflorescence, the number and portion of the 
floral organs, the peculiar insertion of the ovule, and the structure of the seed in 
all essential points, are the same in Antigonon and Brunnichia, and characterise, 
in a marked manner, the small tribe of Brunnichiee. The chief generic distinc- 
tions between the two plants are,—Ist. The folioles of the perigon in Brunnichia 
are nearly equal, more or less connate usually to about the middle, (though never 
perhaps so high as figured by Gertner,) and their midrib is decurrent on the 
pedicel, one of them very broadly, the four others but slightly ; whilst in Anéz- 
gonon the outer folioles are cordate, and very much larger than the inner ones, 
and all are free nearly to the base and not decurrent. 2nd. The filaments in 
both genera proceed from a membranous disk or cup, which in Brunnichia is 
entirely adherent to the perigon, in Antigonon adherent at the base only and 
then free, but not so much so as represented in the figure above quoted. 3rd. 
Both genera have the ovule suspended to a free funiculus, which as the fruit 
grows, retains its original dimensions, so as to force the seed into an erect posi- 
tion; the seed is large, of a pyramidate oval shape, the embryo slightly excen- 
trical, with large flat cotyledons, and a conspicuous radicle directed to the apex 
of the fruit, the whole imbedded in a copious mealy albumen, deeply divided by 
longitudinal furrows; but in Brunnichia this albumen is divided to near the 
middle into about six lobes separated by furrows, to which correspond narrow 
false dissepiments projecting from the inner surface of the pericarp (as in some 
species of oak and walnut); whilst in Antigonon the lobes of the albumen are 
deep, numerous, irregular, sinuate and lobed, and closely appressed to each other, 
resembling in some respects the so called ruminated albumens, and the pericarp is 
perfectly smooth inside. 
