192 CISTACE^. Lechea. 



3. LiECHEA, Kalm. Pinweed. {Prof. J. Leche, of Abo.) — Perennials, 

 with base liardly suffrutescent, bi-anching, and bearing numerous small iDurplish 

 flowers : leaves from alternate to irregularly verticillate, oval to linear or on the 

 branchlets subulate. Flower buds seldom larger than the head of a pin, expand- 

 ing only in the absence of sunshine, produced in summer. Capsule in all more 

 or less triangular. — Kalm in L. Amoen. Acad. iii. 10, & Gen. ed. 5, no. 102; 

 Geertn. Fruct. t. 129; Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 152. Lechea & Lechidium^ Spach 

 in Hook. Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 282, 286. [Revised by B. L. Robinson.] 



§ 1. EuLECHEA.i Flowers either glomerately or sparsely paniculate : pla- 

 centae in fruit thinnish, hardly crustaceous, fragile, free (the partitions becoming 

 evanescent), their sides recurving around the one or two seeds : all or most of the 

 species producing from the base of the flowering stem copious prostrate or barely 

 ascending sterile shoots, which are thickly beset with mainly opposite or verticil- 

 late thyme-like leaves. 



* Pubescence villous and more or less spreading : leaves about half as broad as long : flow- 

 ers glomerate-cymulose, very short-pedicelled. 



L. major, Michx. Stem erect, 2 or 3 feet bigh, with short lateral flowering branches, very 

 leafy: leaves thinnish, puucticulate, abruptly mucronate; cauline half inch to inch long> 

 oblong, many of them as well as the smaller ones of the radical shoots in whorls of 2 to 4 : 

 flowers at length much crowded : capsule depressed-globose, about one sixteenth of an inch 

 Jong, at maturity slightly exceeding the calyx. — Fl. i. 76 ; Poir. Suppl. iii. 340 ; Pursli, Fl. 

 i. 90; Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 153 ; Gray, Man. 49 ; not L., which is a Helianthemuvi. L. minor, 

 Smith in Rees, Cycl. xxi., not of L., although a specimen in herb, belongs to it. L. viUosu, 

 Ell. Sk. i. 184 ; Nutt. Gen. i. 90.'-2 L. mucronata, Kaf. Pre'c. Decouv. 37, & (?) in Desv. Jour. 

 Bot. iv. 269 (1814). Probably L. Dmmmondii, Spach in Hook. Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 284 

 (elaborately de.scribed from single and very imperfect fruiting specimen, coll. Apalachicola, 

 Drummond), from the pubescence and thin leaves of the radical shoots ; but capsule said to 

 be " ellipsoid." — Dry sandy or gravelly soil. New England and adjacent Canada to Nebraska 

 and W. Kansas, and south to Florida and Texas. 



Var. divaricata, Gray, n. var. Long-branched from near the base : flowering 

 branchlets sometimes divaricate : leaves oblong-lanceolate, quarter to half inch long, mostly 

 alternate ; stamens commonly more numerous. — L. divaricata, Shuttl. in distr. coll. Rugel.^ 

 — Sandy pine woods, Florida (Manatee, &c.), Buckley, Rugel, Garber ; Texas, Palmer. 

 (Mex., Shaffner.) 



* * Pubescence appressed: leaves narrower: flowers paniculate: capsule globose to 

 ellipsoid. 



-1— Leaves of the sterile basal shoots oval to oblong, relatively broad. 



L.* minor, L. About 2 feet high, quite erect or with ascending branches, finely pubescent 

 but not canescent : cauline leaves oval or oblong, 3 to 4 or the larger 5 to 6 lines long, 

 abruptly short-petioled, mucronate, some hairy (at least the margins), some whorled or 

 opposite ; those of the crowded panicles varying to linear : capsule obovate-globose, com- 

 monly surpassed by at least one of the outer sepals. — Spec. i. 90, as to one out of several 

 specimens, ./?f/e Britton, 1. c. 247. L. thijmifolia, Michx. Fl. i. 77 ; Smith in Eees, Cycl. xxi. 

 L. Novm-C(vsarea, Austin in Gray, Man. ed., 5, 81. — Dry ground, New England near the 

 coast to S. Carolina and even to Florida. 



L.* maritima, Leggett. Stout and busliy, a foot or two high, canescent-tomentose : 

 radical shoots formed late in the autumn, commonly ascending with thickish oblong leaves, 



1 Dr. Gray's latest views regarding this group have been largely incorporated in the sixth edition 

 of the Manual, and liis treatment of the genus for the present work has been somewhat freely modified 

 in tlie light of Dr. Britton's careful revision (Bull. Torr. Club, x.xi. 244-253) based upon the long 

 study and extensive collection of W. H. Leggett, Esq. 



2 Add Britton, 1. c. 248. 3 Add Britton, 1. c. 249. 



