344 Monography of the North American Cuscutinee. 
ger. The ovary is 2celled and 4-ovulate: but I have never 
seen more than two seeds, separated by the incomplete dissepi- 
ment ; and frequently only a single seed ripens. 
LeprpaNncue CompostrTarvm. 
Stem low, branching; flowers closely sessile, conglomerate, 
5-parted ; tube of the corolla nearly cylindrical, longer than the — 
imbricated calyx, which consists of ten to fifteen scales, twice ag: 
long as the oblong obtuse spreading or reflexed lobes of the co- — 
rolla; stamens equal to the limb, exserted ; scales _pinnatifidly 
laciniate, convergent, covering the ovary ; styles twice as long 
as the ovary with the stylopodium ; capsule globose, enveloped 
by the scales of the calyx, crowned by the stylopodium and 
styles, and covered by the remains of the corolla. 
ar. c. SoLipaciNts : flowers smaller; lobes of the limb reflex- 
ed; stylopodium half as large as the ovary. 
@. Hevianrat: flowers larger, lobes of the limb spreading ; 
scales of the filaments united with one another forming a 5-lobe 
crown in the tube; stylopodium larger than the ovary. 
This singular plant appears to be peculiar to the western prai- 
ries. Ihave observed it since 1833 in wet prairies around St. 
Louis,* on Solidago, (also on Vernonia, Ch. Geyer,) and Dr. 
Clapp has found it on Silphium at New Albany, Indiana; the se- 
cond variety I have gathered on Helianthus since 1838 in similar 
localities ; flowering in August and September. ‘These varieties 
may prove distinct species; but for'the present I am unable to 
distinguish them by more important characters than those given 
above. 
The flowers are always 5-parted ; the tube is not exactly cY- 
lindrical, but a little wider at the mouth than at the base, rather 
obconic. The styles are longer than in any of our Cuscute, and 
almost always unequal; they are inserted on a distinct stylopo- 
dium, which is larger than in any Cuscuta. ‘The stigma is cP 
itate, as in all American Cuscute. 
_-* This is manifestly the Cuscuta Americana (from St. Louis) of Hooker's a 
count of Drummond’s collections, in the Companion to the Botanical Magazine 
I, p. 173; of which it is remarked, that “ Some of the specimens seem to have all 
the ers abortive, and turned into scales, which are excessively crowded, and 
é wreath of a pale st ound the branch of some shrub.’ 
s 
Ps 
AF at 
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