384 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Tequila, 5 October, 1893. A highly ornamental species, distinguished 

 by its large flowers, and figured in ' Garden and Forest,' vii. 175. 



Coursetia mollis. A low shrub, 3-6 feet high : branches striate, 

 glabrate, gray ; branchlets and petioles glandular-tomentose : leaves 

 15-21 -foliate, 4-7 inches long; leaflets elliptic-oblong, rounded at the 

 apex, apiculate or retuse, soft cinereous-pubescent, 8-11 lines long, 3^—5 

 lines broad ; youngest leaves white, silky-villous ; stipules subulate, 

 l L -2 lines long, villous, persistent as short rigid spines: racemes 

 shorter than the leaves, 1^-3 inches long, few-flowered; pedicels 

 about three lines long : calyx deeply and subequally 5-cleft, 4^-6 

 lines long, glandular; segments lanceolate acute: corolla 7-9 lines 

 long ; the orbicular standard reddish brown in a dried state ; the wings 

 and keel yellow : ovary shortly stipitate, glandular-tomentose, about 

 12-ovuled; pod pubescent, 2-2^ inches long, 2 lines broad, about 

 7 -seeded. — Collected in the barranca of Beltran, 5 June, 1893 (no. 

 5491). 



Desmodium spirale, DC. The numerous and varied forms of 

 Desmodium which in their technical characters closely agree with this 

 species form one of the most puzzling groups of the genus. A fairly 

 extensive series of specimens from South America, West Indies, and 

 especially from Mexico and New Mexico, goes far to confirm the view 

 expressed by Bentham (Flora Brasiliensis, xv. pt. 1, 105, 106, and re- 

 peated by Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. 1. 188) that these closely related forms 

 are better regarded as constituting one polymorphous species. Never- 

 theless, it is desirable that the chief tendencies of variation should 

 be indicated. The original descriptions of Desmodium (Hedysaruni) 

 spirale by Swartz (Prodr. 107), and De Candolle (Prodr. ii. 332), 

 indicate that the type of the species had trifoliate leaves with roundish- 

 ovate leaflets. Of this form specimens from the following localities 

 have been seen : Toscano, Cuba, Wright (no. 2319) ; Jamaica, Mac* 

 fadyen ; Porto Rico, Sintensis (no. 1981) ; Tovar, Venezuela, Fendler 

 (nos. 1785, 1786) ; Guayaquil, Hartweg (no. 650, D. syhaticum, 

 Benth.); Costa Rica, Oersted ; Brazil, Burchell (no. 9092); and Jalisco, 

 Pringle (no. 3882). In all these specimens the pods are very slender 

 and strongly contorted, the segments being only |— 1 line broad. From 

 this form the following varieties may be distinguished : — 



Var. transversum. Low, 6-10 inches high, with spreading 

 branches : leaves small, all or the lower uuifoliate ; the single terminal 

 leaflets being transversely rhombic, 4—8 lines broad, two thirds as 

 long ; the upper leaves with ovate-oblong leaflets : pod very slender 

 and strongly twisted, as in the type. — Collected by Mr. Pringle on 



