4 Contributions from the Gray Herbarium 



small yellowish or greenish flowers. The Bepals and only slightly 

 larger wings are subherbaceous and persistent (no1 deciduous as 

 described by ( !hoda1 '. the keel beakless and crestless, and the cap- 

 Bule [sometimes one-celled by abortion) is wingless with thick sub- 

 coriaceous walls and only tardily dehiscent. The typical species, 

 /'. Penaea I... was with a few other species made into a genus by 

 I )e ( Miidolle. which is retained by Bentham A: Hooker, Urban, and 

 by Britton, who has twice revised the group. In the lack of any 

 really distinctive technical characters, however, it seems much 

 better retained in Polygala, By Chodat it was sunk to subsectional 

 rank under his section Hebecarpa, but it certainly merits equal 

 recognition with his other primary divisions of Polygala. 



3. Hebecarpa. Of this very difficult group, which also occurs in 

 the southwestern United States and South America, some sixty 

 speces are here recognized. They are always perennial herbs or 

 undershrubs, with herbaceous stems and usually fruticulose base, 

 the flowers usually purple and medium-sized for the genus. The 

 wings, except in one species and to a less degree in one or two others, 

 are deciduous like the (very rarely persistent) sepals; the keel is 

 neither beaked nor crested; and the fruit is usually narrowly mar- 

 gined. The variations in aril-form are here extreme and much use 

 has been made of them in specific discrimination. Seeds of all spe- 

 cies accessible to me at the present time have been figured, and it 

 is hoped that at a later date the series can be made complete, since 

 a correct idea of the seed-appendages can be given in no other way. 

 Although in a number of cases I have described the flowers as ap- 

 parently ochroleucous in dried material, it is not improbable that 

 they are always of some shade of purple. 



The three sections into which the subgenus is here divided are 

 based chiefly on the persistence or deciduousness of the sepals and 

 wings, as indicated in the key on p. 18. The two larger subsections 

 I have adopted under the main section (Euhebecarpa) are admit- 

 tedly unsatisfactory as at present constituted, being founded 

 chiefly on leaf-size. Had mature seeds of every species been avail- 

 able, a more natural classification could undoubtedly have been 

 made. In the typical species of subsect. Hebantha the corneous 

 umbo of the aril is minute or almost wanting and the scarious 

 border broad and variously disposed; in subsect. Microihrix the 

 umbo is large and the scarious margin usually small or medium. 



