CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FLORA OF IOWA. 69 



Opitntia fragilis, Hawoi'th. — Joints small, ovate, compressed or tumid, or 

 even terete, \-\Yz inches long, fragile; larger spines 4, cruciate, mostly yellowish 

 brown, with 4 to 6 smaller white radiating ones below; bristles few; flowers small, 

 yellow; fruit small, with 20 to 28 clusters of bristles, only the upper ones with a 

 few short spines; seeds few, regular. — On the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone, 

 southward to New Mexico. IVatsoii in Kitig^s Rep., V., iig. 



SoLANUM ROSTRATUM, Diiitctl. — Somewhat hoary or yellowisli, with a cojiious, 

 wholly stellate pubescence, a foot or two high; leaves irregularly or interruptedly 

 bipinnatifid, some of them only once pinnatifid; corolla yellow, about an inch in 

 diameter, hardly regular, the short lolies broadly ovate. — Plains of Nebraska to 

 Texas. (J rays Syn. Fl. N. Am., II., 2ji. 



This has been observed by Prof. Todd in the soutliwestern county 

 of the State, and by Mr. David F. Day at Omaha, fifty miles from the 

 southern boundary. According to Prof. Todd, it occurs sparingly in 

 gardens and about barns, and is apparently not well established. He 

 is inclined to consider it adventitious, and it is accordingly so ])rinted. 



AsCLEPlAS SPECIOSA, Torrey. — Finely canescent-tomentose, rarely glabrate 

 with age; leaves from subcordate-oval to oblong, thickish; peduncles shorter than 

 the leaves; pedicels of the many-flowered dense umbel and the calyx densely tomen- 

 tose; flowers purplish, large; corolla-lobes ovate-oblong, 4 or 5 lines long; hoods 5 

 or 6 lines long, spreading, the dilated liody and the short inflexed horn not surpass- 

 ing the anthers, but the center of its truncate summit abruptly produced into a 

 lanceolate-ligulate thrice longer termination; column, hardly any; wings of the an- 

 thers notched and obscurely corniculate at l)ase. — Along streams, Nebraska to Ar- 

 kansas, and west to Southern Utah, California, and Washington Territory. Gray^s 

 Syn. Fl. N. Am., II., gi. 



The locality cited in the list extends the range of tliis species more 

 than two htmdred miles farther northward than has before been recorded 

 east of the Rocky Mountains. It is one of the most conspicuous and 

 beautiful of American milk-weeds. 



Eleocharis WoLFii, Ci-ay. — Rliizomes very small, creeping, perennial, form- 

 ing small scattered tufts; culm a foot high, slender, pale-glaucescent, striate, two- 

 edged, one side flat, the other convex; sheath ol)liquely truncate, hyaline above; 

 spike ovate-oblong, acute; scales oblong-ovate, obtuse, scarious, pale purple; style 

 3-parted; achenium pyriform, shining, having about g nearly equidistant obtuse ribs, 

 with tran.sverse wrinkles between; tubercle small, depressed, truncate, more or less 

 apiculate; bristles of the perigynium [always?] none. — Margin of ponds, in very 

 wet soil, Fulton county, Illinois, Jolm Wolf Probably it will prove to be not im- 

 comnion. I have specimens collected in the same region, doubtless at Athens, Illi- 

 nois, in the year 1861, Ijy Elihu Hall. Prof Wolf, in a letter, alluded to six bris- 

 tles of the perigynium, but I detect none whatever in the specimens. The spike, as 

 to form and imbrication of the scales, is much as in F. tennis and F. acicnla7-is, 

 etc.; but the achenium, with its several longitudinal ribs and delicate transverse 



