1887. ] BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 159 
BUPLEURUM Linn.—Fruit oblong, flattened laterally : 
carpel with 5 equal very slender primary ribs: oil-ducts 
present or (in ours) wanting: seed-section dorsally flattened, 
with face broadly sulcate: stylopodium flat (figs. 77, 78). 
Plant with simple entire ovate perfoliate leaves, no involucre, 
involucels of 5 ovate leaflets, and yellow flowers. 
i, B. rotandifoliam L*.—Introduced from Europe into fields 
and cultivated ground, New York to North Carolina and 
Tennessee. 
CHAROPHYLLUM Linn.—Fruit narrowly oblong to 
linear, notched at base, flattened laterally, with short beak 
or none: carpel with 5 equal primary ribs, each of which 1s 
subtended by a large group of strengthening cells usually oc- 
cupving the whole thickness of the thick pericarp: oil-ducts 
small, mostly single in the intervals, two on the commissural 
side: seed with more or less deeply sulcate face: styles short 
(figs. 79-84).—Annuals in moist ground, with ternately de- 
compound leaves, lobed or toothed leaflets, usually no invo- 
lucre, many-leaved involucels, and white flowers. 
1, (€.proeumbens Crantz, Umbel. 77. More or less hairy: 
stems slender, spreading, 6 to 18 inches high: fruit (in the 
type) narrowly oblong, glabrous, contracted but not tapering 
at the summit; intervals broader than the ribs: seed-face 
deeply sulcate (figs. 79, 80).—New Jersey to lowa and south- 
ward to North Carolina and Mississippi. We consider this 
polymorphous species to include all our forms of Chzrophyl- 
lum. The only characters that can be used to separate them 
Specifically must be drawn from the beaking of the fruit, the 
size of the ribs, and the depth of the sulcus in the seed-face. 
Isolated specimens can be selected which seem distinct 
enough in these particulars, but a study of a great number 
of specimens from all regions shows an inextricable 
together, and it seems impossible to draw speciiic lines. 
fi 
81; section as in fig. 80).—Kentuckv to Louisiana. 
+8. protractum Link, which differs from B. rotundifolium chiefly in its tubercnlate 
fruit, has been collected on ballast ground by Mr. Martindale. 
