OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 1G9 



small, filiform. This genus appears most closely related to Ligus- 

 ticum, differing from it chiefly in the more slender conical stylo- 

 podia, solitary oil-tubes, carpels dorsally flattened, and fruit con- 

 tracted below. In its habit and lax inflorescence it somewhat 

 resembles Arracacia, but its much broader commissure and the 

 form of the seed would place it rather among the Selineae. I take 

 pleasure in dedicating the genus, at the desire of the discoverer, to 

 Professor John M. Coulter, who with Mr. J N Kose has so care- 

 fully elaborated the North American species of this difficult order. 

 To Mr. Rose I am indebted for kind assistance in determining the 

 generic affinities of the plant here described. 



C. laxum. Stem somewhat woody, 5-10 feet high, an inch in 

 thickness, with prominent nodes ; leaves bi- or tripinnate, 18 inches 

 in length, with enlarged sheathing petioles; leaflets ovate or ovate- 

 lanceolate, serrate, acuminate at the apex, rounded at the base, 

 almost smooth above, pubescent on the veins beneath with minute 

 stiff hairs : inflorescence lax, several times branched, branches 

 bearing compound umbels with 6-12 rays : bracts of the involucre 

 1-4, sometimes wanting, short, filiform; bractlets similar, usually 

 more numerous: fruit 4 lines long; the contracted base a line in 

 length: flowers not seen. — Bluffs of barranca near Guadalajara, 

 September, 1891 (n. 3831). 



Oldenlaxdia Pringlei. Caespitose: stems ascending or pros- 

 trate, subsimple or considerably branched, usually springing from 

 elongated scaly rhizomes : leaves pseudo-verticellate, in groups of 

 4-8, linear, acute, appearing somewhat fleshy : flowers borne in 

 rather loose terminal cymes: pedicels 1-3 lines in length: corolla 

 salver-formed, 4-lobed, 2-2^- lines long, purple in a dried state: 

 stamens and pistil dimorphous; anthers either inserted on the 

 middle of the tube or just exserted from its summit: ovary entirely 

 inferior, crowned in fruit by the lanceolate approximate calyx 

 teeth; these almost equalling the capsule in length: seeds smooth, 

 numerous, obtusely angulate, not concave. — Alkaline plains, Ha- 

 cienda de Angostura, San Luis Potosi, June, 1891 (n. 3758). A 

 plant of almost equal affinity to Oldenlandia and Houstonia, pos- 

 sessing the numerous small angulate smoothish seeds and entirely 

 inferior ovary of the former, but the dimorphous flowers and linear 

 anthers of the latter. 



Crusea megalocarpa, Wats (P. A. A., XXVI. 137), Sper- 

 macoce megalocarpa, Gray (Ibid., XXI. 381). Mr. Pringle's 

 specimens of this species being in flower, the floral characters 



