122 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



subulate filaments. Pistillate flowers without calyx, enveloped in the 

 strongly obcompressed membranous bracts, which are united into an 

 orbicular flattened sac, with a small naked orifice at the apex, adherent 

 below to each other and to the pedicel of the ovary, becoming enlarged, 

 reticulately veined and somewhat wing-margined vertically. (!)vary 

 narrowly ovate-oblong : styles 2, slender, at first exserted. Pericarp 

 thin and membranous, orbicular. Seed vertical, with a simple mem- 

 branous testa; embryo annular; radicle inferior. — A subspinescent 

 undershrub, with alternate entire leaves, the small flowers in axillary 

 clusters or terminal spikes. 



1. G. POLTGALOiDES, Hook. & Am. Erect, diffusely branched, 

 1-3 feet high, the branchlets frequently spinescent ; leaves rather 

 fleshy, glabrous or at first with the young branches somewhat mealy, 

 oblanceolate, spatulate, or obovate, 6-15 lines long, obtuse or acute, 

 narrowed at base and sometimes petioled ; male flowers in axillary 

 clusters, the pistillate mostly spicate ; fruiting perianth 3-6 lines in 

 diameter, sessile, smooth, emarginate, thin, white or pinkish, the seed 

 usually central, about -| of a line broad. — Frequent thi'oughout the 

 Great Basin in alkaline soils, from the Columbia to Utah and South- 

 eastern California. 



Chenopodium (?) spinosum. Hook. Fl. Bor.-Am. 2. 127. Moquin, Enum. 



Chenop. 34. 

 Grayia poJygaloides. Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beechey, 887. Hook. Icones, t. 



271; PI. Geyer, Lond. Jour. Bot. 5. 262. Torrey, Fremont's Rep. 319; 



Stansbury's Rep. 394 ; Bot. Wilkes's Exp. 437. Torr. & Gray, Pac. R. R. 



Rep. 2. 124. Durand, Fl. Utah, 174. Anderson, Cat. Fl. Nevad'a, 125. 



Watson, King's Rep. 5. 292. Coulter, Hayden's Rep., 1872, 779. 

 Grayia spinosa. Moquin, DC. Prodr. 13'. 119. 



Collectors : — Tolniie ; Fremont ; Stansbury ; 802 Wilkes ; 30 Beckwith ; 

 H. Engelmann; 114, 166 Stretch; 277 Anderson; 989 Watson; 858 

 Kellogg & Harford ; Gray. 



15. CORISPERMUM, A. Juss. 



Flowers perfect, ebracteate. Calyx 1- (rarely 2-3-) sepaled, hyaline, 

 or none ; sepals ovate to suborbicular, erose or lacerate at the ajiex. 

 Stamens 1-5, hypogynous, one longer. Ovary ovate : styles 2. Fruit 

 (caryopsis) elliptic, vertical, i^lano- or concavo-convex, the margin 

 acute or narrowly winged, the membranous pericarp closely adherent 

 to the seed. Embryo green, slender, surrounding the copious sub- 

 fleshy albumen ; radicle inferior. — Annual herbs, with alternate sessile 

 linear leaves, the flowers silicate, solitary in the axils of reduced leaves. 



