1897 | BRIEFER ARTICLES 433 
NOTES ON FLORIDA PLANTS. 
THE collections made the past season by Mr. A. H. Curtiss, for the 
current fascicle of his valuable series of Florida plants, contain so 
many species of unusual interest, either as novelties or as exhibiting 
striking additions to our knowledge of geographical ranges, that the 
following notes may prove of interest : 
RYNCHOSPORA Fusca Ait. Hort. Kew. (ed. 2) 1: 127. 
This northern species, not previously reported south of Delaware, was 
found by Mr. Curtiss along moist roadsides at Milton, west Florida, July 8, 
1897 (no. 5929). 
/Cyrtopodium ecristatum, n. sp.— Scape slender, erect, 4 to 12™ high, 
from one or more roundish tubers 2 to 2. 5°" in diameter: leaves erect, 
lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, strongly 3-ribbed, 2 to 5 long: 
racemes loosely or closely flowered, 6 to 12 long, bracts lance- 
acuminate or linear-attenuate, the lowest 3 to 5°" long, much exceed- 
ing the small flowers, the uppermost shorter, about equaling the 
flowers: sepals and petals oblong, 8 to 10" long; lip crestless, rather 
deeply 3-lobed near the base; the middle lobe 5 to 6™™ broad, sub- 
orbicular, the margin slightly crenulate and infolding; the lateral 
lobes widely spreading, oblong or obovate-oblong, 4 to 5™ long: 
column short, 4 to 5™" high: capsule erect, elliptic-ovoid, 2 long.— 
Bletia verecunda Chapm. F1. 456, not Swartz. C. Woodfordii Chapm. 
Fl. (ed. 3) 482, not Lindl. 
Common in the dry pine lands of eastern Florida, blooming throughout 
the summer (/éde Curtiss). Near Jacksonville (type) and borders of Indian 
river (A. H. Curtiss, no. 2808), Tampa (A. P. Garber), near Eustis, and at 
__ Titusville (G. V. Nash, nos. 1571 and 2294). This plant has been generally 
known in American herbaria as Bé/etia verecunda, from which rose-colored 
Species it is obviously very distinct. In 1881, in a letter to Dr. Watson, 
Bentham pointed out that the plant was a Cyrtopodium related to the West 
Indian C. Woodfordii. From that species it differs markedly in size, C. 
Woodfordii being a comparatively stout plant. The flowers of C. ecristatum, 
too, are much smaller, the lateral lobes of the lips more spreading, and the 
column much shorter than in C. Woodfordii ; and the middle lobe of the lip, 
_ which in C. Woodfordii is sparingly crested, in C. ecristatum is quite naked. 
_ According to Mr. Curtiss, the flowers of the Florida plants are yellowish out- 
_ side and purplish brown within. 
