LENNOA FAMILY 475 



Family 130. LENNOACEAE. 



Lennoa Family. 



Fleshy brownish herbs without chlorophyll, parasitic on roots, leaves reduced to 

 bract-like scales. Flowers perfect, in densely flowered spikes or heads. Calyx deeply 

 parted into nearly distinct narrowly linear segments. Corolla sympetalous, tubular, 

 the limb 5-8-lobed. Stamens as many as the lobes of the corolla, inserted on the 

 throat alternating with the lobes ; anthers 2-celled, dehiscent by longitudinal slits. 

 Pistil 1, composed of 6-14 completely united carpels; style 1, simple; stigma sub- 

 capitate or peltate, crenate ; ovary divided by dorsal false partitions into twice as 

 many cells as carpels with one ovule in each cell. Fruit a drupaceous capsule, tardily 

 and irregularly circumscissile, breaking up into 12-28 nutlets. Seed with endosperm 

 and a globular embryo not differentiated into caudicle and cotyledon. 



A genus of 3 genera and 5 species. Besides the following, the genus Lennoa, with 2 species inhabits Mexico. 

 The Lennoaceae is an anomalous group of plants, often placed in the Ericales, but other than the Parasitic habit 

 of the Monotropaceae, it has little or no morphological affinities with that group. Diels (Ivngler, byllabus der 

 Pflanzenfamilien, 1936) has placed it in a suborder of the Tubiflorae, between the suborder Convo/rM/otdeae and 

 the suborder Borraginineae. The character and position of the stamens would indicate that this is a more natural 

 classification. 



Flowers in a dense terminal spike; sepals puberulent. 1- Phohsma. 



Flowers on a terminal peltate disk; sepals plumose. 2. Ammobroma. 



1. PHOLISMA Nutt. ex Hook. Ic. PI. pi. 626. 1844. 



Fleshy parasitic herb with scale-like leaves. Flowers in a simple or completely branched 

 spike without bracts, perfect. Calyx parted into 5-7 narrowly linear lobes. Corolla nearly 

 regular, narrowly funnel form, with 5-7, rounded, prickly imbricate lobes. Stamens as 

 many as the corolla-lobes, and adnate to above the middle of the corolla-tube. Ovary 

 subglobose, 6-10-celled with each cell divided into two by a dorsal false partition. Stigma 

 crenately 6-10-lobed. Fruit subglobose, remaining within the persistent corolla, very 

 tardily breaking up. [Name Greek, meaning scale, referring to the scale-like leaves on 

 the stem.] 



A monotypic genus of California and Lower California. 



1. Pholisma arenarium Nutt. Pholisma. Fig. 4040. 



Pholisma arenarium Nutt. ex Hook. Ic. PI. pi. 626. 1844. 



Lennoa arenaria Fourn. Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr. 16: 11. 1869. 



Pholisma deprcssum Greene, Bull. Calif. Acad. 1: 198. 1885. 



Pholisma paniculatum Templeton, Bull. S. Calif. Acad. 37: 98. pi. 25, 26. 1939. 



Brownish fleshy plant, the portion above ground glandular-puberulent and often well- 

 sprinkled with adhering grains of sand, 1-2 dm. high. Bracts of the stem lanceolate, 8-15 mm. 

 long; spike simple or compactly branched, 2.5-8 cm. thick; calyx-lobes linear or narrowly 

 clavate, shorter than the corolla, glandular-puberulent ; corolla purple except the white margms 

 of the lobes, funnelform, the limb spreading, 3-4 mm. broad ; the lobes rounded, emargniate and 

 more or less sinuate. 



Usually in sandy soil, parasitic on the roots of various shrubs, such as Chrysothamnus, Ericameria Hymeno- 

 clea, Eriodictyon, Sonoran Zones; sandv soils along the coast from San Luis Obispo County to San Diego; also 

 in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts, California, extending into northern Lower California. Type locality: Saa 

 Diego. April-July. 



2. AMMOBROMA Torr. ex A. Gray, Mem. Amer. Acad. II. 5: 327. 1854. 



Fleshy plants without chlorophyll, parasitic on roots. Stems simple, mostly buried in 

 the sand, scaly, expanded at the summit into a broad saucer-shaped disk, bearing the small 

 bractless flowers. Calyx-lobes 6-9, distinct to the base, linear-filiform, plumose. Corolla 

 nearly tubular, the lobes 6-9, mostly 6, erect, plicate. Stamens 6-9, alternate with tlie 

 corolla-lobes, adnate to the corolla up to the throat, the free portions of the filament very 

 short. Ovary of 6-10 carpels by false partitions, 12-20-celled ; style simple; stigma sub- 

 capitate, crenate on the margin. Fruit globose, the endocarp chartaceous, separating 

 readily from tlie fleshy exocarp ; nutlets 12-20. [Name from two Greek words, meaning 

 sand and food.] 



A monotypic genus of the Sonoran Desert region. 



1. Ammobroma sonorae Torr. Sand Food. Fig. 4041. 



Ammobroma sonorae Torr. ex A. Gray, Mem. Amer. Acad. II. 5: 327. 1854. 



Fleshy root-parasite, growing in sand and often buried in it almost up to the expanded 

 saucer-shaped disk forming the inflorescence. Stem 1-2 cm. thick, clothed witli appressed linear 



