PARRY I ASTARRI.EA. 35 



LASTARRICEA, Remy. 



Confirmation of the Genus, with Character Extended. 



BY C. C. PARRY. 



Read before the Academy, October zqth, 188b. 



As long as the Eriogonous genus Lastarricea, Remy., of the Pacific 

 coast of North and South America remained monotypic, and exhibited 

 several apparently anomalous and puzzling characters, it seemed nat- 

 ural, and perhaps excusable, to endeavor to reduce it to systematic 

 arrangement, even by a somewhat forced and obscure construction. 

 Accordingly, the writer, in a recently published memoir on Chorizanthe 

 (Proc. Dav. Acad. Nat. Sci., Vol. IV., pp. 45-63J, on a careful exam- 

 ination of all the material then at his command, adopted, and has since 

 maintained, the view that the Moral organ representing the perianth of 

 previous authors, presenting some of the external characters of a Chori- 

 zanthoid involucre, was actually such, and that the perianth proper was 

 in this case reduced to an obscure lobed ring, adnate to the involucre, 

 on which the stamens were inserted — ■ thus merging the genus into 

 Clwrizanthe, as C. Lastarricea. 



On receiving, lately, from my esteemed correspondent, Prof. Fred- 

 rico Philippi, of Santiago, Chili, S. A., a nearly complete set of Chilian 

 Chorizanthes — including, with the original, two new species of Lastar- 

 ricea — a reconsideration of the whole subject was naturally brought 

 up, leading to the following important results: 



While the two new species indicated by Professor Philippi conform 

 closely to the published generic character, they do not sustain the 

 views adopted in the paper above referred to; at the same time the 

 specific differences bring more clearly to light other characters, hereto- 

 fore obscure, which removes at once the most anomalous features of 

 the genus as before understood, exhibiting a clearly defined involucre, 

 enclosing the proper perianth ! Thus the five subtending cauline bracts, 

 which in the well known species L. Chilensis seem united in a single 

 whorl, in the new species, L. stricta, Philippi, show a clearly defined 

 double series, including two outer, subtending each dichotomous branch, 

 and comprising the ordinary cauline bracts; three inner, more closely 

 united at base, enclosing a perianth, and therefore representing a 

 proper involucre, not unlike that of Chorizanthe, polygonoides. In fol- 

 lowing this clue, it is not difficult to see even in the closely blended 



