DlAPENSIACEAE. 



301 



Pyxidanthera. Pyxie. 

 (Family Diapensiaceae). 



Matted and trailing half-shrub 

 of sandy pine barrens: evergreen. 

 Stems slender, long covered by 

 the persistent leaf - remnants. 

 Buds minute, naked, concealed by 

 the petioles. Leaf-scars absent: 

 stipules or stipule-scars lacking. 

 Leaves alternate or subopposite, 

 oblanceolate, rather crowded, 

 spreading or ascending. 



The pyxie is counted among the 

 most attractive plants of the New 

 Jersey pine barrens, particularly 

 as it flowers very early in the 

 Spring. A special interest at- 

 taches to this region because in 

 it, when Darwinian biology was 

 new, Mrs. Mary Treat made many 

 observations on the localized 

 plants with which she was sur- 

 rounded, and demonstrated the 

 value and pleasure of a truly amateur interest in natural 

 history in a series of contributions to The American Natural- 

 ist, the earlier volumes of which possess a readability which 

 is rare in journals devoted to Science. 



Somewhat transiently white-hairy: leaves acute. P. barbulata. 

 Winter-characters of Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, of the 

 family Plumbaginaceae, much grown over walls, etc., in warm 

 regions, are given by Schneider, f. 109. 



