30 KRAMERIA TRIANDRA 



almost as long as the filaments, densely covered with bright white 

 long silky hairs, 1 -celled with two collateral pendulous ovules, 

 style long, tapering, red. Fruit spherical, J inch in diameter, 

 leathery, covered with white silky hairs and beset with numerous 

 slender tapering, brownish-red spines, about J inch long, and with 

 several barbed deflexed hooks at the end, indehiscent. Seed (not 

 seen) solitary, ovoid, sharp at each end, embryo straight, in the 

 axis of the endosperm, with a long radicle and small plane-convex 

 cotyledons. 



Habitat. A native of Peru, where it grows in dry sandy 

 places on mountain-slopes at 3000 8000 feet above sea-level in 

 several provinces, and is especially abundant near the city of 

 Huanuco. It flowers nearly all the year, but chiefly in October 

 and November ; the Spanish name is ' ' Raiz para los dientes," 

 from its use as a dentifrice. It has not been grown in 

 England. 



The very curious genus Krameria has been considered to form 

 a distinct family by Kunth and by Lindley, and A. Gray has 

 suggested placing it among the Leguminosae Ceesalpineae. Most 

 authors, however, now concur in making it a very anomalous 

 member of the Polygalacese. In the 'Genera Plantarum' the 

 seeds are described as without albumen ; we have not been able 

 to examine a seed, but this was evidently very carefully done 

 by Berg and Schmidt, and we have followed them in the above 

 description. 



Ruiz & Pavon, M. Peruv., i, p. 61 ; Berg, in Bot. Zeit., 1856, 

 p. 766; Lindl., Fl. Med., p. 128. 



Official Part and Names. KRAMERIA RADIX, Rhatany Root ; 

 the dried root (B. P.). The dried root (Krameria vel Rhatania 

 Radix) (I. P.) KRAMERIA; the root (U. S. P.). 



In order to distinguish this kind of Rhatany from the other 

 varieties noticed under the head of Krameria Ivcina, it is 

 termed official rhatany ; or from the fact of its being imported 

 from Peru, Peruvian or Payta Rhatany ; or from its colour, 

 Red Rhatany. 



General Characters and Composition. Peruvian, Payta, or Red 



