310 MALVACEAE. Malcastrum. 



and more or less surpassed by the ovate-acumiuate calyx-lobes : petals half inch long : car- 

 pels 15 to 20, firiu-L-oriaceous, much compressed, brownisli red at maturity, smooth, the 

 narrow back tiat witli acutish angles, hirsute at top, where it is dorsally 2-gibbous and ven- 

 trally subulate-aristate or pointed. — Tl. Fendl. 21, I'l. Lindh. pt. 2, 160, & Gen. 111. ii. 60, 

 t. 122. Malra aurantiaca, Scheele, 1. c. 469, tiierefore Mu/vustrum uuruntiacum, Walp. Ann. 

 ii. 153.1 — Mesquit soil, Texas, Drummond, Wright, Lindheimer, &c. ; fl. summer. 

 * * * Peduncles or pedicels short : petals scarlet, copper-colored or sometimes rose- 

 colored : carpels wholly pointless : iuvolucel of 2 or 3 very slender or rarely ovate bract- 

 lets, often deciduous, or obsolete. — Sphieralceoides. Western perennials, some shrubby, 

 canescent or tomentose with many-rayed stellular pubescence. 

 -1— Pubescence wholly lepidote and silvery, i. e. of peltate scales fringed with very many 

 short hairs, indistinguishable except with a good lens : leaves very narrow. 

 M. leptoph^llum, Gr.\t. a foot or le.ss high from lignescent base and stock; stems very 

 numerous, erect or ascending, slender : lower leaves sliort-ix'tioliHl and 3-parted or -divided 

 into narrow linear divisions; upper simple and sessik>, mostly filiform: flowers few and 

 racemose at summit : petals copper-red, less than half inch long: fruit depressed-globular, 

 slightly surpassing the triangular calyx-lobes; carpels 9 or 10, tomentulose, thickish and 

 rounded on the back, sides coarsely and .strongly reticulated. — PI. Wright, i. 17, ii. 20.^ — 

 S. W. Texas and New Mexico, Wright, Thurbv.r, &c., to S. Utah, Mrs. Thompson. 

 ■i— -i— Stem and leaves (at least on the lower surface) canesceut-tomento.se with short pu- 

 bescence : calyx and rather narrow lanceolate to linear iuvolucellate bractlets hirsute or 

 villous : leaves roundish or obscurely lobed, obtusely dentate or crenate : carpels subor- 

 bicular, tliiu-walled and promptly 2-valved at maturity, smooth or when young tomentose. 

 ]y[.* Palmeri, Watson.' Herbaceous stem stout, equably leafy to summit : leaves 2 or 3 

 inches long, covered on both surfaces with short and persistent stellate tonientum ; the base 

 truncate or subcordate ; petioles long : flowers few and sessile in a capitate cluster at the 

 summit of a terminal peduncle, foliaceous-bracteate : calyx-lobes ovate-lancenlate, attenuate, 

 5 lines in length, with the linear little shorter iuvolucellate bractlets soft-hirsute : petals 

 inch long, light rose-color. — Proc. Am. Acad. xii. 250, & Bot. Calif, ii. 437. — San Luis 

 Obispo Co., California, at Cambria, a mile from the beach, Palmer. A peculiar species. 



M.* involucratum, Eobinson, n. sp. Branches terete, finely stellate-pubescent : leaves 

 thickish, rugulose and soon wholly glabrate above, a little paler and finely stellate-pu])escent 

 beneath, 3-lobed and crenate, cordate at the base with a shallow mostly narrow sinus ; lobes 

 obtuse or rounded ; petioles 6 lines to inch and a half long : flowers smaller than in the last 

 preceding species, densely capitate ; heads terminal, solitary, involucrate with several l)road 

 sessile ovate or oblong acute or obtusish bracts ; bractlets 3, lanceolate : calyx half inch in 

 length ; segments ovate, acuminate, 2^ to 3 lines long : corolla pale purple or white, 10 lines 

 in length : carpels about 10. — California, at .Tolon, Brandegee (herb. Gray), and between 

 Jolon and King City, Miss Eastirood (herb. Calif. Acad. Sci.). An interesting species (pre- 

 sumably of restricted range), with habit of the preceding but different foliage and smaller 

 flowers. 



M. densiflorum, Watsox. Two or three feet high, suffnitescent below : leaves round- 

 cordate, tomentose on both surfaces, inch or more in diameter, rather long-petioled : flowers 

 numerous in sessile heads along the naked summit of the branches, distant or approximate 

 in an interrupted spike : calyx with ovate at length attenuate-acuminate teeth and along 

 with slender bractlets and whole inflorescence hispidly hirsute with slender spreading hairs : 

 petals half inch long, ro.se-red : carpels glabrous. — Proc. Am. Acad. xvii. 368. — S. Cali- 

 fornia, near San Jacinto Mountains in the Colorado Desert, Parish, and San Juan Capi.s- 

 trano, Nevin. 



-)— -t— -I— Foliage and carpels of the last division : bractlets of the involucels broad, ovate, 

 acuminate, .stellate-tomentulose but not hirsute nor villous. 



1 Add syn. Malveopsis aurantiaca, Knntze, 1. c. 



2 .Add sjTi. Malveopsis leptophylla, Kuntze, 1. c. 



8 The description of this plant has been modilied to exclude more clearly the next following nearly 

 related but quite distinct species. 



