Monography of the North American Cuscuiinece. 339 



5-fidis." Other botanists add, "stigmatibus capitatis." Nuttall, 

 gen. (II, addit.) on the other hand has it: "flowers mostly pen- 

 tandrous and sessile ;" and Sprengel (Syst. Veg. I, 864) brings 

 his C. Americana under the section with glomerate subsessile 

 flowers. While these authors refer to one or more North Ameri- 

 can species, others apply the name with at least equal justice 

 to a West Indian plant. Linnseus himself cites Sloane, Hist. 

 I, t. 128, f. 4. After him Jaquin, (Stirp. Am. p. 24,) Swartz 

 (Obs. p. 54) and others describe a West Indian species. The 

 name may therefore properly be reserved for Sloane's plant, or 

 may be discarded altogether. The only reason I have in sup- 

 posing that most North American authors give it to Cuscuta vul- 

 givaga, is that this is the most common and the widest spread 

 species in the United States, and has generally the flowers longer 

 peduncled than any other. 



This Cuscuta is intermediate between C. Cephalanthi and 0. 

 Saururi. In all three the lobes of the calyx and corolla are ob- 

 tuse, and the former shorter than the tube of the corolla. But 

 our plant is distinguished from both by the carina of the lobes 

 of the calyx, which is formed by larger uneven prominent cells, 

 and by the large pellucid dots in the substance of the corolla, 

 which may be mistaken for glands, but are nothing but cells 

 larger than the rest of the tissue. The caringe of the calyx are 

 most prominent on the three outer lobes, and sometimes hardly 

 perceptible on the two inner ; but even then the large irregular 

 cells are easily distinguished by the lens. The lobes of the corolla 

 are shorter than the tube, as in C Cephalanthi : the scales are large 

 and incurved, and the corolla remains at the base of the capsule, 

 as in C. Saururi. The tube is campanulate, but deeper cleft 

 than in C. Saururi or C. Polygonorum. The flowers and fruit 

 are larger than in C. Cephalanthi, and (especially in var. «.) nearly 

 of the same size as in C. Saururi. The styles are in some spe- 

 cimens a little longer, in others a little shorter than the ovary, 

 which appears to be crowned by a stylopodium : this however it 

 is hardly possible to ascertain satisfactorily in the dried specimens. 



4. Cuscuta Saururi, n.sp. 



Stem low, branching ; flowers 5-parted, somewhat peduncu- 

 late, at length in spikes ; tube of the corolla campanulate, equal 

 to the obtusish campanulate or spreading lobes, and longer than 



