/> : 
Baldwin on Rotibéllia. 357 
arisen from my having attended to it in its living. state, and from 
his not availing himself of the information which it would have 
afforded me pleasure to have communicated, had he done me 
the favor to have requested it, or informed me of his wish to 
publish an account of plants thus obtained. He has called: the 
culm solid, leaves rather short, spikes cylindric, axillary, jihe 
flowers and rachis entirely smooth, pedicel of the neutral flower 
emarginate, outer valve of the hermaphrodite calyx acute, the 
valves of the corolla obtuse, and the styles very short. 1 have 
not been able to confirm the above characters, nor do I find 
them even in the dried specimens. Besides, he has omitted to 
inform us that the rachis is naked on one side. This is a most 
important and prominent specific character, the omission of 
which would necessarily lead to much doubt in identifying the 
species. What he means by stating that the “outer valve of 
the hermaphrodite flower is 3-valved,” I cannot imagine, nor 
do I comprehend what is intended by an “exterior auxiliary 
yalye, or neutral rudiment; nearly the length of the calyx.” 
Ihave. noticed ina single instance connected laterally with the 
corolla of the perfect flower, two very delicate, narrow, acute 
pointed bodies, the length of the outer valve, and of the same 
quality and appearance, but these I have considered as acci- 
dental, and cannot perceive any thing about them like neutral 
rudiments. Nor can-I consider the articulations of the rachis 
as “deeply excavated.” ‘They are, as already stated, flat on 
the inner side, and constitute from their flexuous form, position, 
and connexion with the pedicels of the neutral florets, an arch 
in which the perfect flowers are situated. 
Rottbéllia ciliata.* 
Culmo erecto, tereti, glabro, ramoso: foliis angustissimis, 
brevibus: spicis cylindricis super pedunculis teretibus longis, 
solitariis terminalibusque : calycis bivalvis, margine valva 
exteriori ciliata: corolla bivalvis. 
* "This is the specific name found in my Herbarium by Mr. Nuttall, under 
which it had been previously transmitted to Mr. Elliott. Vid. Muttall’s North 
merican. Genera, v. I. p. 
Vol. 1.... No. 4. 
