CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE GRAY HERBARIUM OF HARVARD 

 UNIVERSITY, NEW SERIES, No. XXI. 



SOME NEW SPERMATOPHYTES FROM MEXICO AND 



CENTRAL AMERICA. 



By M. L. Fernald. 



Presented March 13, 1901. Received March 20, 1901. 



Fimbristylis melanospora. Glaucous, tufted from a hard base: 

 leaves firm, smooth, strongly nerved, 1 to 1.5 mm. wide, tending to 

 become involute, the longest barely 1 cm. long, with a short deltoid 

 cartilaginous tip : culms compressed, with thin edges, 2 dm. or less high : 

 umbel decompound, with very short rays, forming a dense inflores- 

 cence 1 to 2 cm. broad ; involucre of 2 or 3 very unequal leaves, the 

 longest not equalling the mature umbel ; spikelets ovoid-oblong, 3.5 to 

 4.5 mm. long, 2 to 2.5 mm. thick : scales ovate, blunt, slightly carinate, 

 pale brown with broad white scarious margins : style slender, terete, 

 smooth, with 2 pubescent branches ; achenes lenticular, obovoid, broadly 

 rounded above, 1 mm. long, brownish black, minutely muriculate. — 

 Vera Cruz, low grounds, Vera Cruz, April 23, 1894 (C. G. Pringle, 

 no. 5773). Superficially resembling some forms of F. polymorpka, 

 Boeckl., but differing in the paler and smoother leaves, the broader white 

 margins of the scales, the very different blackish achene, and the slender 

 (not compressed) smooth style. 



F. alamosana. Low tufted annual, about 1 dm. high : leaves flat, 

 smooth, mostly much shorter than the slender flexuous culms, rarely 

 longer; the sheaths densely ciliate : umbels decompound, with 3 to 7 

 slender lux unequal rays, the longest 2 or 3 cm. long, the spikelets 

 mostly long-pedicelled ; involucre of 2 or 3 unequal leaves, the Ion- 

 equalling or exceeding the rays; spikelets pale straw-colored or whitish, 

 ovoid-oblong, acutish, 2.5 to 3.5 mm. long, 1 to 1.75 mm. thick: Bcalea 

 ovate, acutish, or the lowest mucronate, slightly carinate: style com- 

 pressed, pubescent, with 2 branches; achene barely 1 mm. long, broadly 

 cuneate-obovoid, with 10 or 12 obscure longitudinal bands, white, pearly 

 and finely muriculate all over. — Sonora, Alamos, Sept., 181)0 (Edw. 



