338 Monography of the North American CuscutinecB. 



fleshy, not membranaceous, and finely crenulate ; the lobes al- 

 ways erect and somewhat incurved. The scales of the filaments 

 are smaller than in any other of our Cuscutse, and consist of one 

 or two teeth on each side of the filament, (where it adheres to 

 the tube,) thereby indicating the true nature of these singular 

 "nectaria." It appears to be rarer than the other species, and 

 grows more on dry ground. 



3. CUSCDTA VULGIVAGA, 71. Sp. 



Stem branched ; flowers pedunculate, somewhat glomerate or 

 more lax, generally 5-parted ; tube of the corolla deeply cam- 

 panulate, longer than the pellucid-punctate open (finally reflexed) 

 lobes, and the roundish, carinate, obtuse and slightly crenulate 

 segments of the calyx ; scales convergent, fimbriate, united at 

 the base ; styles about as long as the ovary (with the stylopodi- 

 um ?) ; the remains of the corolla persistent at the base of the 

 globose capsule. 



Var. a. LAxiFLORA : flowers in loose cymes. 

 j5. GLOMERATA : flowers conglomerate. 

 y. TETRAMERA : flowers in umbelliform cymes, 3-4-parted. 



This species has apparently not only the widest range of all 

 the American Cuscutag, but is less restricted to the same genus 

 or family of plants. Indeed I have scarcely met with it twice 

 upon the same species. Var. «. is the southern and western 

 form : Western New York on Decodon, Dr. A. Gray ; Missouri 



on Cephalanthus and Amphicarpasa, and Georgia, on ? J. 



Carey ; Alabama, on Salix and Aster, S. B. Buckley. Var. §. 

 is the northern form : my specimens are from Vermont, on Leer- 

 sia, and New Hampshire, on Solidago, both from Mr. J. Carey. 

 Var. y. Connecticut, on Urtica, /. Carey. 



The Cuscuta vulgivaga, is perhaps in part the Cuscuta Amer- 

 icana of Linnaeus, and of many later botanists. But their diag- 

 noses are too incomplete to decide the point, and difl'erent species 

 undoubtedly have been confounded under this name. Even 

 Linnffius himself (Spec. Plant, ed. 1, p. 124) referring to Gronov. 

 Virg. and to Sloane, Hist. I, p. 201, t. 128, f. 4, confounds two 

 distinct species. Which of them is to be the C. Atnericana ? 

 Linnaeus has only the following words : " Cuscuta floribus pe- 

 dunculatis." Michaux, (I, 175) : " Cuscuta, floribus pedicellatis, 

 pentandris." Pursh, (I, 116): "C. fl. pedunculatis umbellatis 



