238 Plants collected during a journey 



Desc. Plant covered with a minute pulverulent pubescence. Stem sub- 

 quadrangular, erect, branched, with enlarged joints. Leaves opposite, broad- 

 ly cordate, acute or acuminate, opake and rather thick ; petioles 4-5 lines 

 long. Flowers axillary and terminal. Involucrum campanulate, nearly 

 an inch long, 5-cleft, including 4-7 flowers, pedunculate; segments ovate, 

 acute. Calyx coralloid, infundibuliform, an inch and a half long, persis- 

 tent, 5-lobed ; lobes acuminate. Stamens 5-6, about as long as the calyx; 

 filaments smooth, capillary ; anthers large, yellow, 1-celled? Germenl- 

 seeded, ovate ; style capillary, exserted; stigma capitate. Seeds oblong, 

 covered with the indurated coriaceous base of the calyx. 



Hab. About the Forks of the Platte. 



Obs. Remarkable for its many-flowered involucrum, and 

 also for the large size of its flowers. 



370. O. ntctaginea. Allionia nyctaginea, Michx. fl. i. 

 p. 100. Calymenia nyctaginea, JYutt. gen. i. p. 26. 



Obs. Involucrum about three fourths of an inch in diame- 

 ter, pubescent ; leaves scabrous on the margin, the rest of the 

 plant smooth. 



AMARANTHACEiE. 



371. Oplotheca floridana, Nutt. gen. ii. p. 79. Bart. 

 Jl. Amer. sept. ii. t. 69. Gomphrena floridana, Spreng. On 

 the Canadian or Arkansa. 



Obs. The genus Oplotheca, of Nuttall, was founded on 

 the present plant and Gomphrena interrupta of Jamaica. 

 The latter was long since supposed, by Jussieu, to differ ge- 

 nerically from Gomphrena. (vid. gen. pi. p. S9.) The 

 G. lanata of Kunth, is a third species of this genus. In Dr. 

 W. P. C. Barton's account of the Oplotheca, (1. c.) it is erro- 

 neously stated to be a perennial. The figure he has given is 

 remarkably accurate. 



