MACLOSKIE : POLYGONACE^E. 345 



having many pendulous seeds. Fruit fleshy. Embryo globose, with 

 endosperm and perisperm. 



Species 8, Africa, and 3 species in extratropical S. Amer. 



PROSOPANCHE DeBary. 



Flowers on a leather-colored stalk, 3-merous, the 3 stamens surmounting 

 3 fleshy staminodes which are deeper in the tube. Placenta plate-like, 

 as 3 partitions of the ovary, enclosing the seeds. 



Species 2. 



i. P. BONACINAI Speg. 



Tuber deeply delitescent, suborbicular or lenticular, branches solitary, 

 long, hypogaeous, i -flowered. Flowers suberous-coriaceous, mostly 3- 

 merous, with inferior, globose ovary ; of the size of a hazel-nut, and with 

 long, slender tube which equals or surpasses the thick apical lobes, them- 

 selves exceeding the long-ovate staminal column. Fruit subbaccate, 

 small, slightly pulpy. Mostly the perianth-lobes are the only parts visible 

 above the ground. The tubercle is buried several meters deep. 



N. Patagon., by Rio Colorado, from the preandine region to the At- 

 lantic, "Flor de tierra," parasitical on Baccharis salicifolia, Gourliea 

 decorticans and on species of Salicornia. Its pulverized staminal column 

 is used as haemostatic, and its decoction as internal medicine. 



2. P. BURMEISTERI DeBary.- 



(S.-Amer., in pampas of Argentina, on roots of species of Prosopis; 

 sometimes so common that pigs are driven to feed on the fruits.) 



Family 3 i . POLYGONACE.E. Buckwheat Family. 



Herbs or shrubs, with jointed stems, and usually sheathing stipules (these 

 obsolete in the Eriogonum section). Flowers small, regular, perfect or vari- 

 ously diclinous. Petals none. Calyx free, 2-6-parted, its segments some- 

 times petaloid. Stamens 2-9, hypogynous. Ovary i-carpeled, i-ovuled; 

 style 2-3-cleft. Achene lenticular or 3-angled (or rarely 4-angled). Em- 

 bryo orthotropous, in mealy endosperm. 



Species 800, widely distributed. 



