322 NORTH BRAZILIAN EUPHORBIACE^ 



various works, it is impossible to determine these little annuals with 



accuracy 



Dalechampia. 



The Santarera plant distributed as possibly a new species, proves to 

 be a mere variety of the common D. scandens, Linn., or _D. Brasiliemis, 

 Lam., to which should probably be referred D. sid^/oUa, H. B. K., and 

 some others. Mr. Spruce gathered also another common species, D, 

 co7wolvuloides, Lam,, at Barra do Eio Negro. He did not meet with 

 the curious and somewhat anomalous B, micrantha, Poepp., but we 



Schomb. n. 784; Rich. Schomb, n. 1430). 



(Eob 



Peridium. 



r 



The small tribe of EuphorhiacecB, to which Dr. Klotzsch has given the 

 long and somewhat inconvenient name of Prosopidodinea^, is divided by 

 him into four genera, so closely allied to each other, that he might well 

 have left them united under the name of Pera, selected by Mutis, pro- 

 bably in allusion to the pear-shaped fruit of his original species. I 

 have not, it is true, seen the male flowers of Mutis's plant, and I do 

 not quite understand the character given of them by Klotzsch; and 

 it must be admitted that the columnar andrcecium of Schism atoper ay 

 although it separates but a single species, is a character which is in 

 EnpJiorhiacece generally considered as sufficient for generic distinction. 

 I do not therefore venture, without a more careful study of some of the 

 older species than my present materials enable me to make, now to 

 propose their entire re-union, but at least I cannot distinguish Spixia 

 from Peridium. In all the species I have examined (including most of 

 Klotzsch's), the stamens of each male involucre are separated into two 

 or three distinct flowers by calyxes, which, as the stamens enlarge, be- 

 come irregularly split, so as to assume the appearance of mere scales or 

 bracts. These calyxes, called calyces hi-tri-partiti, in the character of 

 Spixia, and squamnlce memhranacem in that of Pera, vary much in 

 length, but are never entirely wanting in any species of Peridium I 



have seen. 



Peri 



(Loud 



vol, ii, p. 44), but omitted in the detailed character, as well as in the 

 analytical figure, in his review of South American Euphorbiaceous 

 genera, in Ericson's 'Archiv.' The rudiments of female flowers in the 



