Addisonia 39 



(Plate 244) 



RUNYONIA LONGIFLORA 



Runyon's Huaco 



Northern Mexico and southeastern Texas 

 Family Amaryludaceae Amaryllis Family 



Runyonia* longiflora Rose, gen. et sp. nov. 



In the John Torrey Herbarium, now kept in the New York 



Botanical Garden, is a plant collected in northern Mexico in 1853 



by Arthur Schott while connected with the first Mexican Boundary 



Survey. So far as we have been able to learn this plant has not 



since been reported, although it is now 70 years since Schott found 



it. In 1921 Robert Runyon, a very keen collector, sent from 



Brownsville, Texas, to Washington and the New York Botanical 



Garden several collections of Manfreda-like plants, one of which 



flowered the same year and proved to be this long-forgotten plant 



of Schott's. In its roots, leaves, and habit it greatly resembles 



Manfreda, that little genus of herbaceous plants which for many 



years has been referred to Agave. It has, however, a very slender 



elongate flower-tube, red flowers, and sessile anthers, attached at 



the top of the flower-tube. We believe that it is a distinct genus 



which we would place between Manfreda and Pseudobravoa. This 



very beautiful little plant is named for Mr. Runyon, who has 



collected many interesting plants. 



Runyon's huaco is bulbose with a short thick rootstock and a 

 cluster of fleshy roots, resembling very much the tuberose or 

 Polyanthes. The basal leaves are five to seven, spreading, thick, 

 green, mottled with purple, linear, four to eight inches long, with 

 serrulate margins. The flowering stem is twelve to thirty inches 

 long, slender, greenish purple, erect; the stem-leaves are few, the 

 upper ones short and bract-like. There are five to twelve sessile, 

 brick-red flowers; the perianth- tube is slender, one and one-half 

 inches long; the six segments are oblong and spreading; there are 

 six sessile anthers; the single style is included. The fruit is nearly 



* Runyonia gen. nov. 



Stem bulbous, crowning a short thick rootstock; roots thickened, fleshy, in 

 clusters; basal leaves linear, elongate, spotted; stem-leaves 2 or 3, small, bract- 

 like; flowering stem slender, simple, terminated by a very open spike; flowers 

 solitary in the axils of small bracts; perianth slender, salverform, greenish white 

 at first, brick-red in age; stamens 6; anthers sessile, inserted at the top of the 

 tube, exserted; fruit small, nearly globular; seeds flattened, black. 



