64 
coriaceous, sheathing. Flowers dicecious, in spathes like those of 
Zostera. Spathes with membranous edges, the back thickened 
and terminating in long, leaf-like appendages. Spadix with a 
series of short, dilated, foliaceous flaps, which close over the 
flowers, spreading open at maturity. Sterile flowers of numerous 
sessile stamens, in two rows lying obliquely crowded against each 
other, I-celled, dehiscing by a ventral slit, dorsally attached near 
one side about half-way up; pollen thread-like. Fertile flowers of 
sessile ovaries, attached above the base, attenuate into a short 
style; stigmas 2, capillary; ovules pendulous, orthotropous. Fruit 
coriaceous, indehiscent, beaked by the short persistent style, cor- 
date-sagittate, projecting at base into 2 recurved wings or lobes, 
and attached to the spadix between them. Seeds globose, with 
a thick, membranous test; embryo thick, the radicular end 
flattened ovoid, the cotyledonary end cylindraceous and curved 
upon the radicle. 
Two species only are known, occurring upon the Pacific coast; 
also on the Asiatic coast. 
I. PHyLLOSPADIX Torrey, S. Watson, Proc. Am. Ac. xiv. 303 
(1879). 
Rootstock usually covered with the fibrillose remains of old 
leaves. Stems slender, flat, 20 or more inches in height, bearing 
the spathes in clusters along the upper part. Leaves 3-6 feet in 
length, %-3/ line wide, thick, Opaque, smooth, obscurely 1-3 
nerved, blackening in drying; sheaths very long with narrow, 
whitish, membranous edges. Spathes 2 or 3 in a cluster, 1-2 
inches long, slightly curved, with broad, whitish membranous 
edges, each spathe on a peduncle 17.1 inch in length. Append- 
ages of the fruiting spadix elliptical, those of the sterile oblong- 
ovate, both obtuse. Stamens cylindraceous, obtuse at both ends. 
Ovaries flask-shaped, in fruit laterally flattened and carinate on the 
back, about 3 lines long. Stigmas long, thrust out of the spathe 
at anthesis. Test reddish, somewhat shining. 
Growing on rocks which are uncovered at low tide. 
Santa Barbara, Cal. (Mrs. R. F. Bingham); Los Angeles (Parish 
Brothers); Bolinas Bay (Prof. E. L. Greene). July-August. (Plate 
LXXII and LXXIV.) 
