104 



Through its narrow cauline leaves and short outer sepals, 

 Lechea Deckertii is related to Lechea racemulosa, but it differs 

 from it in the globose and exserted capsule. The type specimens 

 are in the herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden. 



A NEW CHAMAESYCE FROM TROPICAL FLORIDA 



John K. Small 



Of the fifteen or more spurges (Chamaesyce) of the Everglade 

 Keys of southern peninsular Florida, the great majority are 

 pineland inhabitants. They are mostly well marked species, 

 some of them with very characteristic habits of growth. Some 

 are erect and single-stemmed, others are prostrate and many- 

 stemmed. Two species — C. deltoidea and the one under con- 

 sideration — form mats that cling closely to the limestone rocks; 

 thus unlike any spurges of this genus in our flora. The second 

 species just referred to may be named and described as follows: 

 v/ Chamaesyce adhaerens Small, sp. nov. Perennial with a 

 woody single or clustered tap root, the stems and branches 

 several to many, ultimately copiously branched and forming 

 closely prostrate mats, wiry-filiform, finely hirsutulous or villous- 

 hirsutulous: leaves opposite, often very numerous: blades reni- 

 form, orbicular-reniform, or ovate-reniform, 2-3.5 rnm. long, 

 cordate or subcordate at the base, entire, rounded at the apex, 

 finely gray-pubescent, often densely so on both sides: involucre 

 broadly campanulate or hemispheric, nearly 1.5 mm. long, 

 rather long-peduncled, closely minutely pubescent; glands 

 transversely elliptic or semielliptic, fully 0.5 mm. wide; append- 

 ages of the glands mere pale margins to the glands or obsolete: 

 capsule ovoid-globose, fully i mm. long, finely pubescent, very 

 fragile, nodding: seed ovoid, about i mm. long, the faces slightly 

 wrinkled. — Pinelands, Everglade Keys, S. pen. Florida. 



In the summer and fall, when the pineland flora of the Ever- 

 glade Keys is at its best, the spurge just described is very com- 

 mon, especially where the limestone is moist from capillary- 

 water. It commonly covers the rocks with dense gray mats. 

 Its nearest relative, both in technical characters and in habit is 

 Chamaesyce deltoidea with which it grows. It differs from that 

 species, however, in the pubescent foliage, stouter less wiry 

 stems and branches, and the glabrous pods. The type specimen 

 — collected in pinelands between Peters Prairie and Homestead, 

 Florida, November loth, 1906, by J. K. Small and J. J. Carter 

 No. 25^1, is in the herbarium of The New York Botanical Garden. 



