146 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



"''^ Atriplex Palmeri. Stout, shrubby at base, diffusely branched, a 

 foot or two high, white appressed-scurfy : leaves obovate or ol)laiiceolate, 

 rounded or acutish at the apex, attenuate to a short petiole, alternate, 

 entire, a half to one and a half inches long: flowers dioecious, in close 

 naked panicled spikes : calyx 5-cleft : bracts compressed, cuiieate- 

 orbicular, free, the margin above the middle herbaceous and irregularly 

 laciniately toothed, in fruit somewhat indurated and coavex, a line and 

 a half broad, the sides rarely sparingly rauricate. — Collected by Dr. 

 E. Palmer ou Guadalu|)e Island. Very nearly allied to A. Nattallii, 

 Watson, of Colorado and northward. 



Brahka edulis, H. Wendland, in letter. Stem sometimes thirty 

 feet high and fifteen inches in diameter : leaves flabelliform, to- 

 mentose on the folded edges when young, three feet long, deeply 

 parted into numerous (70 to 80) bifid segments which are lacerately 

 fibrous at the apex ; petiole very stout (an inch broad at the top), 

 unarmed, somewhat fibrous-pubescent on thc^upper side, and terminated 

 by a densely silky-tomentose ligule two inches long : tubular spathes 

 and much-branched spadix densely tomentose : flowers sessile, in 

 clusters of three^or more, aline and a half long: calyx 3-parted, shorter 

 than the thick valvate 3-cleft corolla : filaments broad, adnate below to 

 the corolla-tube : ovaries oblong, nearly free ; the short styles united : 

 berry solitary, globose, an inch in diameter when dry, the flesh some- 

 what fibrous : seed globular, 7 or 8 lines in diameter, smooth : albumen 

 horny, not ruminate, with a bi'oad and deep ventral cavity filled by the 

 intruded testa ; embryo near the base. — On Guadalupe Island, col- 

 lected by Dr. E. Palmer ; fruiting clusters four feet long and weighing 

 40 or 50 pounds. The characters above given differ from those of 

 Brahea, as described and figured by Martins, especially in the peri- 

 gynous instead of hypogynous stamens, in the less coherent ovaries and 

 stigmas, and in the form of the albumen, which in Brahea has a narrow 

 longitudinal cavity, filled by the testa, extending from the apex nearly 

 to the base; the embryo is also dorsal. In most of these respects it 

 accords more nearly with Livistona, but with some discrepancies in 

 other directions. 



/ Braiiea (?) AiniATA. A second species very similar in its fi-uit to 

 the last, and evidently of the same genus, was recently collected by Dr. 

 E. Palmer in the Big Caiion of the Tantillas Mountains, about eighty 

 miles southeastward from San Diego. It is described as a tree forty 

 feet high : the leaves are glaucous, nearly glabrous even when young, 

 two and a half feet long, similarly cleft into fewer (30 to 40) entire 

 segments; the large ligule glabrous; petiole a foot and a half long, 



