102 



There are then, it will be seen from the above, two species with 

 cylindric perianths, one white and the other yellow, and likewise 

 one each, white and yellow, with a much broader perianth, rang- 

 ing from campanulate to obovate. 



It may be interesting to note that this small genus, comprising 

 about ten species, has had a most restless career, so far as its 

 family relationship is concerned. It has been placed in the 

 Haemodoraceae, Amaryllidaceae, and the Liliaceae ; in the first 

 one by no less an authority than Bentham and Hooker and in 

 the last by as great and more recent an authority, Engler and 

 Prantl, who make it the sole genus of a single tribe in that family. 



In addition to the four species known from the United States, 

 there are six species in eastern Asia, extending from Japan to 

 Borneo, so that for a genus so small in numbers it covers a rather 

 extended territory. 



A detailed description of the new species follows : 



Aletris obovata. — A tufted perennial with long slender stems 

 and inflorescence and obovate white perianth. Stems 5-7 dm. 

 tall, striately ridged, leafy : leaves sessile, the basal narrowly 

 elliptic to obovate-lanceolate, narrowed at the base, acute at the 

 apex, glabrous, 6-8 cm. long, 1-2 cm. wide, 9-1 1 -nerved, 

 bordered by a narrow translucent margin, abruptly passing into 

 the bract-like leaves of the stem which are lanceolate and 1.5 

 cm. long or less : inflorescence 2-4 dm. long, slender : flowers 

 numerous, spreading, on pedicels about 2 mm. long which are 

 subtended by two bracts : perianth obovate, 6-7 mm. long and 

 about 5 mm. in diameter, white, rugose, 6-angled, the angles 

 rounded, the segments united for about three fourths their length, 

 the free portion incurved, the tips of the outer ones greenish : 

 stamens adnate to the perianth for a little more than one half 

 their length, the filaments glabrous, the free portion subulate and 

 diverging, the anthers cinnabar : ovary ovate-conic. 



Collected in pine land, Jacksonville, Fla., by Nash & Small, 

 November, 1901, no. 381, living plants only, and neither in fruit 

 nor flower. Flowered at the conservatories of the New York 

 Botanical Garden in June, 1903. 



New York Botanical Garden. 



