2 Addisonia 



The seeds are rhombic, a sixth of an inch long or less, dark purple- 

 brown, with irregular lines of glands on the sides, abruptly con- 

 tracted into a blunt tip at the base. 



As late as the last decade of the last century only two kinds of 

 partridge-pea or wild sensitive-plant were generally recognized as 

 growing in the United States. All the plants were grouped under 

 two species, one with small flowers and one with large. As plant 

 collectors increased in number and began to push out beyond the 

 limits of the better botanically known portion of the United States 

 represented by our northeastern seaboard, many plants differing 

 decidedly from those before known were brought to light. One 

 species after another of Chamaecrista has been discovered and de- 

 scribed, until at the present time more than a dozen well marked 

 species are generally recognized by systematic botanists; over half 

 of these grow naturally in Florida. 



The first specimens of the species under consideration were col- 

 lected in 1901. Less than a decade earlier a large partridge-pea 

 native in southern Georgia and Florida, an annual, commonly 

 growing to be more than two yards in height, and with a tap root, 

 was described as Chamaecrista brachiata. Deering's partridge-pea 

 was at first confused with the annual just referred to. However, 

 its characters soon became evident; the most prominent one is the 

 stout elongated horizontal rootstock, which is quite an exception 

 in this genus. It is thus a perennial instead of an annual, and al- 

 though it is neither as tall nor as much branched as C. brachiata, 

 it is the largest flowered and most beautiful of our partridge-peas 

 or wild sensitive plants. 



Like a large number of plants inhabiting the pine-woods where 

 forest fires have been frequent for ages, the plant here illustrated in 

 all probability assumed the habit of burying its main stem (root- 

 stock) beneath the surface of the ground. On the one hand it is 

 thus not in danger of being exterminated by fires sweeping through 

 the woods, and on the other a forest fire seems to increase its vigor, 

 for the plants growing on areas recently burned over present a 

 much more healthy appearance than those growing where fire has 

 not as recently swept the vegetation. 



The specimens from which the accompanying plate was made were 

 collected by the writer in the pinelands on the reservation of Mr. 

 Charles Deering at Cutler, Florida, May 3, 1918. 



John K. Smali,. 



Explanation of Plate. Fig. 1. — Flowering stem. Fig. 2. — Rootstock. 

 Fig. 3. — Flower, sepals and petals removed, X 2. Fig. 4. — Pod. 



