VOL. IV.] ContribiUions to IVesiern Botany. 255 



separate, many, an inch or less long, erect except in the first 

 stages; anthers yellow, elliptical to oval, and usually obtuse at 

 both ends, basifixed, one-half a line or less long, wider after 

 bursting, filaments yellow and filiform at apex, white and 

 enlarged and scale-like at base; next the ovaries is a sheath of 

 sterile filaments which are enlarged throughout, nearly equaling 

 the others, lanceolate, ridged, corrugated and w^hite. Ovaries five, 

 erect, closelj^ aggregated, linear-cylindric, densely white-pubescent 

 with glandular hairs up to the glabrous, filiform, persistent stj-les 

 (two to four lines long) w^hich with the ovaries are a trifle 

 shorter than the stamens in flower, but the rapid development of 

 the ovaries soon thrusts out the styles; stigma very small and 

 capitate. At maturity the carpels lengthen to about an inch 

 (half an inch in one case) and are linear, straight, but bent 

 outwards at tip, cross section obovate, opening along the 

 inner side from the oblique tip down, sparsely glandular-hairy, 

 reticulated; seeds many, in a single row, horizontal, obliquely 

 obovate cylindric, a line long, rounded on the back, with sharp 

 inner edge, very black, smooth and shining when full}' ripe, but 

 less mature ones are brown. Flozcej's paniculate, racemose, or 

 in one species single, the main stem sending off", usuall)' above 

 the middle, three to five branches remotely, each branch being 

 subtended by a single leaf, branches a foot or less long, and 

 lower half naked while the upper half has one to three flowers 

 or rarely is again branched with one to three flowers on 

 each branch, flowers terminal and centrifugal (central one 

 blooming first). Peduncles usually with leafy bracts at base, and 

 central one often with two in the middle, peduncles one to four 

 inches long, more or less bent, but erect in fruit, longer than the 

 flowers, glandular hairy. Roots perennial, fusiform, thick, with 

 many short stout spreading branches at the top which are 

 covered and much thickened with closely imbricated and old leaf 

 sheaths. Stems tufted, erect, bent at base, tall (except in two 

 species), usually leafless below, especially the lower third. 

 Leaves with short, ridged sheaths one-fourth to an inch long; 

 root leaves biternate (triternate in one species and with petiole 

 absent in another), many, petioles long, generall}- about one-third 

 the length of the stems; primary divisions of petiole two to four 



