;0 Muhlenbergia, Volume 6 



with gypsum, about one hundred feet above the Virgin river, 

 and about twelve miles down the river from St. Thomas, Clark 

 county, Nevada, elevation about noo feet. 



Our suspicions in the field that it must be somewhere near 

 the four o'clock family were substantiated when we returned to 

 our laboratory and literature. Knowing that Mr. Paul C. Stand- 

 ley, of the U. S. National Museum had recently published an 

 excellent review of this family, we first thought we would test 

 his key in Cont. U. S. Nat. Herb. 12: part 8. The dimensions 

 and character of the plant can readily be obtained from the illus- 

 tration, and a detailed description of the parts can be gained 

 from the Botany of the Mexican Boundary under the name of 

 Boerhaavia leioselina. Both these descriptions should call the 

 leaves leathery rather than fleshy. Standley's key is a little 

 confusing with "flowers large" and "flowers small," and even 

 the dimensions of "2 cm. or less," do not help very much. The 

 flower in bud is fully 2 cm. long, and as the flower develops the 

 tube lengthens greatly, until the whole portion above the recep- 

 tacle measures 3.5 cm. 



The most interesting feature about the whole plant to me, 

 are the regularly placed bands of .stick v material half way be- 

 tween the nodes, unlike those of other plants in the desert with 

 glandular excretions. Parry, who according to Torrey in the 

 Botany of the Mexican Boundary, first collected this species in 

 the Great Canyon of the Rio Grande, 70 miles below El Paso, 

 Texas, does not mention these sticks- bands. Staudley considers 

 that the sticks- material is exuded by the plant. When the 

 writer saw the plant in the field, these sticky portions had en- 

 trapped a large number <>t winged ants. The substance is not 

 sweet, and does not dissolve off in cold water. I can not dis- 

 cover any "reddish ring" mentioned l>v Standley. When the 

 substance is washed off with alcohol, there is left a brown stain. 

 1 am not satisfied but that it may be deposited there by insects, 

 perhaps for a trap. Yet it may be to present some unfriendly 

 wingless creature from getting up to the flowers and destroying 

 the scheme of fertilization. There are many things in connec- 

 tion ssith the plants of the desert that need an explanation. 



