308 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Spiranthes tenuiflora. Roots several, fleshy, tuberous : stems 

 3 to 6.0 dm. high, bearing at the base remnauts of the old radical leaves, 

 above clothed with alternate lanceolate-acuminate white scarious imbri- 

 cated bracts or sheaths, these somewhat more remote toward the 

 inflorescence : racemes 1 to 2 dm. long, many-flowered, somev/hat 

 glandular-pubescent ; bracts ovate, lanceolate, acuminate, 3-uerved, shorter 

 than the sessile slender flowers (2 cm. long) : outer lateral divisions of the 

 perianth lance-oblong, obtuse, 3-nerved, about 6 mm. long, 2 mm. broad, 

 the upper sepal somewhat longer and broader than the lateral one ; lateral 

 petals narrowly lance-oblong, obtuse, shorter than and more or less 

 connivent with the upper sepal; labellum in general outline oblong, about 

 7 mm. long, short-uuguiculate, slightly hastate by a rather prominent 

 tubercle on either side at the base, terminated by a broadly ovate-reni- 

 form acute somewhat turbinate conspicuous expansion, 5-7-nerved, bear- 

 ing just above the hastate base minute papillae. — Collected by C. G. 

 Priugle in lava fields near Cuernavaca, Morelos, altitude 1,525 m., 16 

 February, 1899, no. 6995. A very striking and characteristic species, 

 readily recognized by the white showy bracts sheathing the stem, and 

 by the elongated racemes with long slender more or less remote reddish 

 or reddish-yellow sparingly glandular-pubescent flowers. 



HosACKiA REPKN3, Don, Gen. Syst. of Gard. & Bot., ii. 200; 

 Walp. Rep., ii. 855. Specimens collected by C. G. Pringle in ditches 

 at TIalpam, Valley of Mexico, 20 August, 1896, no. 7240, and by Dr. 

 J. W. Harshberger, no. 170, are referred with little doubt to the above 

 meagrely described and little understood species. As the specimens 

 cited accord well with the brief characterization of Don, it seems best to 

 take up the above name, and to present herewith the following amplified 

 description. — An herbaceous perennial: stems repent or ascending, 

 3 to 7 dm. long, more or less branched, glabrous below, pubescent above : 

 leaves including the petiole 2 to 6 cm. long, 5-9-foliolate ; stipules 

 triangular, acuminate, 2 to 5 mm. long ; leaflets obovate-oblong, 1 to 



2 cm. long, 4 to 8 mm. broad, obtuse, mucronate, narrowed below 

 into a conspicuously blackened rather slender (1 mm. long) petiolule, 

 green and glabrous above, somewhat paler and pubescent beneath : 

 inflorescence corymbose on long slender peduncles, these 8 to 18 cm. in 

 length, much exceeding the leaves; umbel usually 5-flowered, and sub- 

 tended by a short-petioled 3-5-foliolate bract: flowers 1 to 1.4 cm. 

 long, yellow, on short blackish pubescent pedicels : calyx-teeth lanceolate, 



3 mm. long, about equalling the more or less reddish-maculate tube, both 

 tube and calyx-teeth pubescent : standard obovate-oblong, slightly 



