134 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [avctst 
THREE NEW CHORIPETALAE FROM NORTH AMERIG 
D MEXICO. 
” Silene rectiramea. — Cespitose perennial, 2 to 3°” high: stems st 
eral from a multicipital caudex, covered at the base by the pale scarious 
persistent scale-like ciliated bases of the earliest leaves, terete or elliptt 
in section, slightly striate in a dried state, pubescent and more or Its 
viscid especially above, sometimes simple to the inflorescence, som 
times branched from every node; lower internodes relatively shot 
often curved, the middle and upper elongated, 6 to 8™ long, ™ | 
exceeding the leaves, remarkably straight ; branches solitary or opp 
site at the nodes, diverging from the stem at a uniform angle of about 
45°; their internodes‘also elongated and very straight: leaves of the 
stem about five pairs; the lower ones, like the radical, oblanceolalé, 
2.4 to 4™ long, 4 to 7 broad, the middle and upper lance-oblong ® 
linear, all acute, 1-nerved, obscurely pinnate-veined, minutely papillos 
and pulverulent-puberulent under a strong lens: bracts lance-linea,_ 
often purplish, 7 to 9™ long; bractlets similar, 2" long : flows 
terminal on the divergent branches of and open flat-topped cymes 
in weaker stems reduced to a terminal and one or two short-pee® 
lateral ones; calyx cylindric in anthesis, white and papery but vet 
with light purple, 9™" long, 1o-nerved ; the nerves opposite the a 
branching freely, intermediate ones subsimple; teeth orbicular 
incurved margins: gynophore in anthesis 1.7, in fruit 2.5 long 
1 to 1.1 long, glabrous except externally at the very base ; claws 
ulate, subauriculate at the summit, 3-veined ; blade short, 2 aS 
long, bifid a fourth of its length: stamens 10, equal : carpels 3: 4 
sule ovoid, 7"" long, at maturity 1-celled to the very base : seeds 
dish-brown, tubercles in few concentric series, those of the dorsal 162 
enlarged and forming a more or less definite crest. 
z 
Collected by Professor D. T. MacDougal about the Grand Cafion of . 
Colorado in Arizona, altitude 2150™, 28 June, 1898, no. 181. 
ray. 
This species stands near S. verecunda Watson, ag 
gated very straight branches and delicate papery calyx, which, altho pete 
rowly cylindric to obovoid, shows no indication of the tightening * : i 
tion about the carpophore which is to be noticed in 5S. verecunda. pee | 
S. rectiramea were distributed in Mr. MacDougal’s interesting ee il | 
but were determined only to the genus. Mr. A. A. Helle 0d 
charge of the identification of the sets, has courteously waivel 
author his right to characterize.this species. 
