SECTION III : G. PALMERII 205 



cordate, acuminate, with three to five very long awl-shaped teeth, glands on 

 extremity of peduncle forming conspicuous pits within the auricles of the 

 bracteoles. Flowers very small, scarcely one inch in length and corolla only 

 slightly exceeding the teeth of the bracteoles. Corolla pale lemon yellow 

 conspicuously black-dotted, petals ciliate and with a purple tinge on the 

 blades, but destitute of purple blotches on the claws ; rotating to right. 

 Calyx (f. 3) glabrous conspicuous, loose truncate, many- veined, with 

 black dots (glands) in parallel rows ; fruit (f. 4) contained within the 

 accrescent bracteoles (less than one inch in length), ovate oblong, suddenly 

 and shortly beaked, warted on the outer surface, bursting into three valves. 

 Seeds, three to four in each cell, free, lajge, irregularly triangular in transverse 

 section, densely coated with green fuzz and with a fairly liberal supply of 

 woolly white floss (f. 5). 



Habitat. Mexico. Mexico. 



Citation of Specimens. Collected by Dr. Edward Palmer, n. 384. 



Nomenclature. Dr. Palmer issued specimens of this plant under 

 the name G. arboreum, Linn., which species it resembles in the 

 possession of a green fuzz, but in almost no other feature. It has, 

 however, a close affinity to G. fruticulosum, Tod., although Todaro 

 describes his species as having the leaves all simple and obscurely 

 sub-cordate ; makes no mention of the peltate condition of the base 

 of the leaf, nor of the prominent stipular scars, nor of the pits on the 

 apex of the pedicels, neither had he seen the fruits and seeds. It 

 accordingly seems desirable, in the present state of our knowledge, to 

 assign an independent position to Palmer's plant rather than to 

 modify the description of G. fruticulosum so as to embrace the two 

 forms. This is the more desirable since a specimen in the Herbarium Affinities 

 of Florence, named by Todaro himself as G. microcarpum, is hardly of the 

 the G. microcarpum figured and described by him, but is in my 

 opinion rather suggestive of G. fruticulosum, and would thus be a 

 cultivated state of that species or of G. Palmerii, in which case all 

 three specimens may constitute but one species. But the fact that 

 Todaro described a very different looking Mexican plant, G. lanceo- 

 latum, as a distinct species, which has simple narrow lanceolate 

 cuneate leaves, borne on long petioles, the whole plant in that 

 instance being hairy, allows of the possibility of a third or even of 

 more species such as G. Palmerii and G. Schottii. 



G. Palmerii has all the appearance of being a wild species its A wild 

 cultivation (owing to the small size of fruit and low yield of floss) s P ecies - 

 could never be profitable though the label on the solitary specimen 

 seen by me makes no reference to that fact. It seems this may to 



