374 Rafinesqut on the Genus Flotrkea. 



wrong ; but I must notice before, that no botanist had, I be- 

 lieve, endeavoured to class it naturally, until Mr. Correa de 

 Serra, who in his reduction of American genera to the natural 

 families ofJussieu, attempted, without having had an opportu- 

 nity to see the plant, to place it in the family of Junci, taking 

 it therefore to be a monocotyle plant ; being led into this er- 

 ror by a mistaken idea, that all hexandrous plants must be 

 monocotyle! But in the spring of 1816, I found this plant in 

 the neighbourhood of Philadelphia, (near the falls of the 

 Schuylkill) where it had escaped the attention of all the bo- 

 tanists of that city, and in particular of Dr. William Barton, 

 who has therefore omitted it in his Prodr. fl. Philad. and hav- 

 ing communicated it to Mr. Correa, he acknowledged that it 

 was dicotyle, of which fact I was aware, even before seeing 

 the plant and dissecting its seed, by attending to its habit. 



The following exact description of this genus will enable 

 the reader to ascertain how far 1 am correct in my presump- 

 tions towards its natural arrangement. 



Floerkea. Perigone double persistent, sixpartite ; the exte- 

 rior calicinal 3 partile, sepals acute ; the interior shorter, 

 coloured 3 partile, sepals petaloid, oblong, obtuse. Six stamens 

 perigyne, filaments filiform, of the length of the interior sepals, 

 anthers round. One free ovarium, rounded and bilobed, one 

 central and bifod style, two capitated stigmas. Fruit a bilobed 

 atricule, tuberculated and bilocular dispermous, sometimes 

 round, unilocular and monospermous by abortion of one lobe 

 and cell. Seeds attached to the centre near the bottom, nearly 

 lenticular, smooth albuminous, easily divided in two lobes. 

 Habit. Small, delicate, annual, and glabrous plant, with alter- 

 nate polytome pinnated leaves, flowers axillar, solitary, pe- 

 dunculated. 



Floerkea uUginosa. Caule tenello flaccido erecto simplex, 

 foliis 4 petiolatis imis ternatis, summis pinnato, quinatis, pinnu- 

 lis lineari oblongis obtusis, integris floribus axillaris, solitaris 

 pedunculis longis apice incrastatis. Stem delicate, soft, up- 

 right, and simple, leaves petiolated, the inferior ternated, the 

 superior pinnated, quinate, pinnules hnear-oblong obtuse. 



