PARRY HARFORDIA. 27 



suggested the name Harfordia, in compliment to the long-time effi- 

 cient Curator of the California Academy of Science, and for many 

 years previously a zealous collector of Pacific coast botany — Mr. G. 

 W. H. Harford. Now, at last, as one of the fruits of the present sea- 

 son's (1886) collections, I have just received from my zealous corre- 

 spondent, C. R. Orcutt, of San Diego, lately returned from an exten- 

 sive and arduous land trip into the arid districts of Lower California, 

 complete flowering specimens of one of the species above referred to, 

 being identical with the Pterostegia ?nacroptera, Benth. ; P. galioides, 

 Greene. From the specimens thus obtained, a careful examination re- 

 veals such remarkable- and unexpected floral characters, that, fully con- 

 firming the surmises of Mr. Greene, will require the establishment of a 

 new genus, which, in cordially carrying out his suggestions, I venture 

 herewith to characterize, viz. : 



Harfordia, Greene & Parry. 



Dioecious! rarely monoecious; pistillate flowers single, involucrate; 

 involucre monophyllous, the folded edges forming a winged central 



crest, laterally bilobed and gibbously bisaccate. accrescent in fruit, 

 hyaline and reticulated with deep red veins; staminate Mowers without 

 involucre ! in axillary clusters on an irregular axis, more or less pro- 

 longed ; pedicels jointed at the summit, hispid below ; perianth 6-parted, 

 stamens 6-9, in two rows, anthers oval; pistillate flowers persistent, 

 much shorter than the developed akene, 6-parted, with 9 staminodes 

 in two rows at the base; styles short, recurved, stigmas capitate; akene 

 smooth, oblong, acute narrowly winged; embryo axile, excentric, rad- 

 icle as long as the oval cotyledons. Suffruticose or shrubby perennials, 

 with jointed stems, opposite connate leaves, dichotomously branched, 

 with irregular fasciculate leaves, and flowers in the upper axils. Differs 

 from Pterostegia in its perennial habit, its axile excentric embryo, and 

 from all known Eriogonete in its dioecious flowers. Confined in its 

 geographic range to the arid districts of Lower California, and adjacent 

 islands. — Pterostegia, Benth. & Hook., Gen., PL III., p. 94, in part. 

 Two species, viz. : 



1. H. macroptera. — Pterostegia macroptera, Benth., 1. c. — P. gali- 

 oides, Greene, 1. c. 



Suffruticose, diffusely branched from a thick ligneous axis, hoary with 

 appressed pubescence, branches slender, jointed, with swollen nodes 

 at the junction of the opposite connate sessile leaves; leaves entire 



