Vol. XXVIII, pp. 87-88 April 13, 1915 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



• BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A NEW SPECIES OF ACHYRANTHES FROM TOBAGO. 



BY PAUL C. STANDLEY. 



(Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.) 



Mr. W. E. Broadway, who by his extensive collections has 

 contributed so much to our knowledge of the flora of Trinidad 

 and Tobago, recently forwarded to the writer, among other 

 plants, specimens of an undescribed Achyranthes^ from Little 

 Tobago Island. This island, which lies just off the northeast 

 coast of Tobago, was unknown botanically until visited by 

 Mr. Broadway in July, 1914. Interest in Little Tobago has 

 been enhanced recently by the fact that Birds of Paradise have 

 been liberated upon it by the owner, Sir William Ingram, 

 proprietor of the Illustrated London News, for whom, at Mr. 

 Broadway's suggestion, the new species of Achyranthes is named. 



Achyranthes ingramiana Standley, sp. nov. 



Stems herbaceous, ascending or decumbent, the branches stout, pilose 

 (especially about the nodes) with slender, smooth, yellowish, ascending or 

 subappressed hairs; petioles slender, 4-8 mm. long, sparsely short-pilose; 

 leaf blades orbicular-ovate or broadly ovate, 2.5-5 cm. long, 2-3 cm. 

 wide, rounded at the base and shortly decurrent, acute at the apex 

 or rarely obtuse, mucronate, succulent, bright green, translucent 

 when dry, sparsely pilose-strigose on both surfaces; peduncles axillary, 

 simple, slender, 1.5-3.5 cm. long, shorter than the leaves, pilose-strigose; 

 spikes solitary, subglobose to short-cylindric, 7-15 mm. long, about 8 

 mm. in diameter, the flowers stramineous, pediceled within the bracts, 

 the pedicels stout, nearly 1 mm. long, deeply 5-sulcate; bracts and bract- 

 lets ovate-deltoid, half as long as the sepals, aristate-acuminate, sparsely 

 short-pilose; sepals narrowly lance-oblong, 3.5 mm. long, acute, thick, 

 short-pilose nearly to the apex, the tips erect or incurved ; anthers sessile ; 



* The generic name Achyranthes is used here to designate the group usually known 

 as Alternanthera. See, The application of the generic name Achyranthes, by Paul C. 

 Standley. Journ. Wash. Acad. Sci. S: 72-76. 1915. 



13— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. XXVIIl, 1915. (87) 



