278 DECANDRIA. MONOGTNIA. 



Flowers in a terminal subumbellate scape. Stamina 10 

 to 15. 



Species. H.muscipula. Obs. Scape about 10-flowered, 

 flowers in an umbell by pairs, each pair subtended by a 

 single bracte. Calix persistent, 5-parted, segments ovate- 

 oblong-, marg-in membranaceous and g-landuliferous. Pe- 

 tals 5, marcescent, cuneate-obovate and emarg'inate, witb 

 the margin somewhat lacerated, inserted with the sta- 

 mina beneath the germ, rolling inwards on withering, at 

 first convolute as in the flowers of Hypericiimy in flower 

 spreading and incurved, numerously nerved, nerves dicho- 

 tomal above, diaphanous. Stamina 10 to 14 or 15, more 

 rarely 16, disposed without any order relative to the pe- 

 tals, strictly polyandrous; filaments filiform, shorter than 

 the petals, the interior ones sometimes petaloid; anthers 

 whitish, with 4 angles, diaphanous; bursting on the open- 

 ing of the corolla; pollen nearly white, conspicuous, 3 or 

 ^-angled, lobes round. Style 1, tubular, stigma lobedt 

 lobes lacerately fimbriate, at first involute towards the ori- 

 lice of the style, after the manner of the coma in Valeria- 

 na. Germ roundish and depressed, partly 5-lobed, infla- 

 ted, lobes emarginaied, cell 1, vales none. Seeds 20, 25, 

 or 30, black and polished, inversely conic-ovoid, destitute 

 of perisperm? somewhat about the size and form of the 

 seeds of Hypericum perforatum, ^\\dic\\&(\ to the receptacle 

 by so many minute umbilical filaments, umbilicus not 

 quite central, agreeing with the parallel of insertion upon 

 the convex and favulose receptacle, which centrally occu- 

 pies the base of the capsule. Capsule membranaceous, at 

 length shrinking away so as to leave the seeds exposed 

 upon the polyphore. Taste of the plant sweetish and af- 

 terwards transiently pungent, sap somewhat resinous, at 

 first yellow. In drying the plant becomes black. 



Hae. Hitherto exclusively found on the North side of 

 Cape Fear river, North Carolina, and no where more abun- 

 dant than round Wilmington. I have traced it for 50 

 miles north of that place, and am infonned that it extends 

 to Fayetteville. — This singular plant, notwithstanding the 

 extraordinary peculiarity of its foliage, is evidently allied 

 to the Hypericin A, and more particularly to the genus 



observe that a detached leaf would make repeated eflTorts to- 

 \yards disclosingitself to the influence of the sun, these attempts 

 consisted in an undulating motion of the marginal ciliae, acconi- 

 panied by a partial opening and succeeding collapse of the lami- 

 na, which at length terminated in a complete expansion and in 

 the destruction of sensibility. 



