TISSA. ILLECEBRACE. 89 
PENTACENA. 
Jbranched, 3-9 inches high; leaves linear, fleshy, 4-1 inch long or more: sti- 
pules short: pedicels 1-9 lines long, reflexed: calyx 1-2 Jines long: capsule a 
ittle longer than the calyx. Along the Coast, Puget Sound to California, 
and the Atlantic Coast. 
* * * Procumbent or decumbent winter annuals, scarcely at all 
fleshy; flowers small or of medium size: stipules conspicuous. 
<P. —tubra Britton Lc. 127, Spurgularia rubra Presl. Stems spread Upwa 
ing: wiry, I-I0 inches long, smoothish below, fine glandular-pubescent 
above; leaves flat above, narrowly linear, cuspidate 4-9 lines long 4-} an y 
line broad; stipules white, attenuate 2-3 lines long: inflorescence racemi- 
form: pedicels filiform, exceeding the bracts and about twice as long as the 
oblong-lanceolate scarious-margined acutish glandular-pubescent sepals: - 
flowers magenta, 114 lines in diameter, petals scarcely equalling the calyx: 
capsule equalling the calyx: seeds minutely crested but not winged. Road- 
Sides and sandy places, Washington to California and the Atlantic States 
(Europe). 
* * * * Slender spreading or erect annuals scarcely fleshy; stipules 
short, deltoid. 
T. diandra Britton 1. ¢. 128. Spergularia diandria Boiss. Viscid pu- 
bescent to nearly glabrous; leaves not fascicled, linear-filiform: pedicels 
slender, about two lines long, spreading or deflexed: sepals in fruit 144 lines 
long but little exceeding the capsule: stamens usually only 2 or 3. Sandy 
places from the Columbia valley to Texas, * 
OrpEr XII. ILLECEBRACEZ Lindl. Nat. Syst. ed. 2; 127. 
Herbaceous or rarely suffrutescent branching plants with op- 
posite or fascicled entire mostly sessile leaves and scarious sti- 
pules, closely related to Amarantacee. Sepals 5, persistent: 
petals reduced to mere filaments alternate with the sepals or 
wanting. Stamens as many as the sepals and opposite them, 
fixed by the middle introse. Ovary l-celled by the oblitera- 
tion of the dissepiments. Style 2-cleft. Fruit an utricle with 
a solitary or geminate ovule borne on slender funiculi rising 
from the base of the cell. Seeds campylotropous. Embryo 
more or less curved around the outside of mealy albumen. 
1 PENTACAENA Bartling. 
Low densely tufted perennial, with the subulate leaves densely 
crowded on the branches, dry and silvery stipules and axillary 
clusters of sessile flowers. Sepals 5, nearly distinct, hooded, 
unequal, terminating in a short divergent spine, the inner 
more shortly awned. Petals minute, scale-like. Stamens 3-5, 
inserted at the base of the sepals: style very short, bifid. Utricle 
included in the rigid connivent calyx. : 
P. ramosissima Hook. & Arn. Bot. Misc. iii, 338. Prostrate and mat- 
ted, 2-18 inches long, somewhat woolly: leaves 3-5 lines long, pungently 
awned, at length recurved: stipules lanceolate, acuminate, shorter than 
the leaves, l-nerved: calyx tube a line long, the divergent outer lobes 
nearly twice longet: stamens usually 5: stigmas subsesstle! utricle apicu- 
ute, On the seashore, Oregon to southern California, 
