237 
TWO RARE LOBELIACEOUS PLANTS. 
By Epwarp L. Greene. 
Among the Lobeliaces, the Californian Nemacladus is one 
of the most distinct and remarkable of genera. Nuttall, the 
discoverer of this type, having seen only one out of the six 
species now known, expressed the opinion that it could hardly 
be referred to the Lobeliacex or any other family, but would 
probably stand as the type of a distinct natural order.’ True 
it is that in characters of flower and fruit there is nothing 
about Nemacladus that is incongruous with Lobeliaces, un- 
less it be that the anthers are separate rather than joined 
together around the style. But that by which Nemacladus 
differs so widely from all other genera of this order that no 
botanist at first glance would refer them to it, is its very 
unique habit. The plant when full grown and in flower or 
fruit presents nothing that could be called herbage. It is a 
diffuse and intricate wiry mass of delicate almost capillary 
purple branchlets and pedicels, without trace of foliage. The 
leaves are a mere rosulate tuft near the ground, and these 
disappear as soon as the plant is well in flower. There is no 
flowering plant of any alliance to which this genus makes 
any near approach in point of habit and general aspect. We 
were therefore a little disturbed in mind when we observed 
that one of Mr. Pringle’s Mexican plants of this family, a 
plant totally incongruous with Nemacladus in habit, had 
been described as a new species under this genus, by Dr. 
Robinson of Cambridge. 
Dr. Robinson’s defense of his proposition is that the plant 
has the distinct and stellately radiating anthers of this genus, 
though he admits that in habit the herb is utterly at variance 
with Nemacladus. In our judgment the technical character 
by which it agrees with Nemacladus can not outweigh the 
fact that in habit it is so very different. On the contrary, — 
habit is always the test to which characters are put, to try 
their value. Radiating anthers might run through a dozen 
1Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n. ser. viii. 254. 
Eryruea. Vol. 1, No. 12 [1 December, 1893]. 
