Addisonia 1 



(Plate 121) 



CHAMAECRISTA DEERINGIANA 

 Deering's Partridge-pea 



Native of southern Florida , .,.^s, ^ 



Family Caesai^piniac^ar Ssnna Family 



Chamaecrista Deeringiana Small & Pennell; Pennell, Bull. Torrey Club 44; 345. 

 1917. 



A perennial with few or several clustered or approximate stems 

 borne on a stout horizontal rootstock. The stems are erect or 

 nearly so, a yard tall or less, relatively slender, purple, purplish, or 

 red-tinged, ultimately glabrous or finely appressed-pubescent, es- 

 pecially above, usually simple, sometimes with few lax branches, 

 and commonly slightly zigzag. The stipules are lanceolate or 

 subulate-lanceolate, a half inch long or less, prominently ribbed, 

 slender-tipped. The leaves are rather numerous, with pinnately 

 compound blades. The petioles are a quarter of an inch long or 

 less, finely pubescent, each with a brown ovoid or elliptic discoid 

 gland on the upper side, above or below the middle. The leaf- 

 rachis is elongate, glandless, otherwise similar to the petiole. The 

 leaflets are borne in mostly ten to twenty pairs ; the blades are linear 

 to linear-lanceolate, or, in the case of the lower leaves, sometimes 

 broadened upward, mostly about a half inch long, acute or mucro- 

 nate, glabrous, shining, and when dry rib-veined on either side of 

 the excentric midrib; they are oblique at the rounded base which 

 is articulated to a cushion-like petiolule. The flowers are borne in 

 fascicles which terminate very short superaxillary branches, the 

 peduncles two to four together, or sometimes solitary, with lanceo- 

 late to subulate-lanceolate bracts which resemble the stipules. The 

 calyx is glabrous or nearly so, bright green ; the five lobes are slightly 

 unequal, narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, a half inch long or less. 

 The petals are bright yellow, broadly obovate, the standard an 

 inch long or less, the other petals shorter than the standard, and 

 all somewhat concave, short-clawed or nearly sessile, the two lower 

 ones each with a pair of brown spots at the base. The stamens, 

 numbering ten, are borne on an annular disk. The filaments are 

 very short and stout, mostly about one twenty-fourth of an inch 

 long. The anthers are subulate, except the slightly enlarged and 

 lobed apex, curved, glabrous, yellow or reddish, or yellow below 

 and brown at the tip. The gynoecium exceeds the stamens in 

 length; the ovary is decurved, linear above the abruptly bent and 

 slightly swollen base, finely appressed-pubescent; the style is fili- 

 form, curved, glabrous, except the base; the stigma is minute. 

 The pod is linear, usually narrowly so, one and a half to three and a 

 half inches long, brown, thick-walled, rather thick-margined, 

 scarcely stipitate, with a very short stout slightly curved beak. 



