Crislalella. CAPPARIDACE^. 181 



# * * Herbaceous, annual : ovary 2-celled, didymous, the cells 1-2-ovuled ; in fruit each 

 carpel a nutlet or utricle separatiug'by a small perforate cicatrix from the persistent and 

 indurated axis and rigid style : seed conduj^licate : torus very short between the obovate- 

 spatulate petals and the 6 stamens. 



6. WISLIZENIA. Stanieus with long and filiform filaments and short anthers. Ovary 

 with long filiform stipe : style long and filiform, soon indurated. Carpels divaricate and 

 oblate-obovate, in fruit coriaceous, reticulated, filled by the solitary seed, tardily falling 

 away from the oval pertuse replum, the scar with thickish border aud small open centre. 

 Flowers racemose. 



7. OX YSTYLIS. Stamens little surpassing the petals. Ovary with short and stout stipe : 

 style very long, subulate, and with the solid placental base soon indurated and spiuesceut. 

 Carpels comparatively small, obovate ; in fruit smooth, thiu and soft, conformed to the obo- 

 vate conduplicate seed, the testa of which is cartilaginous. Flowers densely glomerate. 



Tribe II. CAPPARE^. Fruit indehiscent, more or less fleshy or baccate. Shrubs 

 or trees. 



8. AT AMISQUE A. Sepals dissimilar ; two outer concave, valvate in the bud ; two inner 

 much smaller, spatulate. Petals 4, unequal, small. Torus cyathiform and oblique, dentate, 

 bearing about 9 unequal stamens, of which three or four are reduced to stamiuodia. Ovary 

 long-stipitate, ovoid, one-celled, with 4 parietal pluriovulate placenta; and a subsessile 

 stigma. Fruit globular, fleshy, lepidote-canescent, 1-2-seeded. Cotyledons plicate-convolute. 



9. CAPPARIS. Sepals 4. Petals 4. Stamens numerous, on a short torus : filaments 

 filiform or. capillar}'. Ovary long-stipitate, one-celled with 2 parietal placentiB in our 

 species, or spuriously 2-celled : stigma sessile. Fruit many-seeded, baccate, or sometimes 

 becoming dry and bursting irregularly. Embryo convolute : cotyledons foliaceous. 



1. ISOMERIS, Nutt. (Formed of lo-os, equal, yitcpt?, part, perhaps in allu- 

 sion to the equality of the stamens.) — Nutt. in Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 124 ; Hook. 

 Bot. Mag. t. 3842; Benth. & Hook. Gen. i. 106. — Single species. 



I. arborea, Nutt. 1. c. Low and stout or sometimes taller and arborescent shrub, with 

 hard yellow wood, ill-scented, puberulent : leaves 3-foliolate ; leaflets oblong to lanceolate, 

 about the length of the petiole, entire, mucronate : flowers in terminal bractea,te raceme : 

 most of the bracts simple or unifoliolate : petals yellow : capsule iucli or two long, long- 

 stipitate.i — Di-y ground, S. California, from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border and the 

 Colorado Desert; first coll. by Th. Coulter; fl. summer. 



Var.* globosa, Coville. Young stems not glaucous as in the type : capsules short 

 aud thick, subglobose, truncate or nearly so. — Proc. Biol. Soc. "Wash. vii. 73, & Contrib. 

 U. S. Nat. Herb. iv. 67, t. 4. — Near Caliente, Kern Co., Calif., Coville. Said to intergrade 

 freely with the longer-fruited form. 



2. CmSTATELLA, Nutt. (A kind of diminutive of crista, a crest, prob- 

 ably in allusion to the fringe-toothed petals.) — Two very similar species of 

 erect and branching annuals, leafy, puberulent and viscid ; with petiolate pal- 

 mately 3-foliolate leaves, linear leaflets, and small slender-pedicelled racemosely 

 disposed flowers in the axils of upper leaves, some of which are reduced to bracts : 

 petals white, cream-color, or yellowish, and stamens purplish. — Jour. Acad. 

 Philad. vii. 85, t. 9; Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 123; Gray, Gen. 111. i. 177, t. 77. 

 Oyrhasium, Endl. Gen. 891. 



C. erosa, Nutt. 1. c. 86. A foot or two high : petals very unequal ; blade of the larger com- 

 moulj' 3 lines long, and with claw almost equalling the deeply dissected smaller ones : fila- 

 ments elongated, at first declined: capsules inch or two long, on stipe of about twice the 

 lengtli of the marcesccut gland : seeds smoothish. — Cyrbasium erosuni, Endl. in Walp. Rep. 



1 Add syii. Ckome ar-borea, Greene, Pittonia, i. 200. 



