36 PLANTS WRIGHTIAN^. V. 



era. Mexico. — Shrub 3 or 4 feet high, much branched, rigid, glabrous. Leaves al- 

 ternate, and mostly fascicled on short axillary spurs, persistent, coriaceous, shining, 

 3-5-nervedat the base, reticulate-veined, spathulate, obovate, or cuneiform, very 

 obtuse, often retuse, 5 to 8 lines long. Male flovi'ers not seen. Female flowers 

 much smaller than those of S. frutescens, several together, closely sessile in the cen- 

 tre of the fascicle of leaves, greenish. Sepals 4, orbicular, scale-like, persistent, 

 doubtless imbricated in sestivation. Corolla of 4 narrowly oblong and obtuse pet- 

 als, hypogynous, deciduous. Disk none. Filaments of four abortive stamens small, 

 hypogynous, alternate with the petals. Ovary sessile, free, ovate, two-celled, with 

 a solitary anatropous ovule erect from near the base of each cell. Style nearly 

 wanting : stigmas 2, oblong-linear, large, divergent, commonly 2-cleft ; the lobes 

 acute, often unequal, papillose. Drupe globular, scarcely two lines in diameter, 

 deep scarlet, containing two separable crustaceous pyrense. Seed with a membrana- 

 ceous testa. Embryo straight, surrounded by a sparing fleshy albumen, nearly of its 

 length: cotyledons oval, foliaceous, plane, occupying nearly the whole breadth of 

 the albumen : radicle very short, inferior. — Plainly a congener of Schsefferia frutes- 

 cens, Jacq., of which I have female specimens only, from Key West, both from 

 Mr. Blodgett and Mr. Rugel's collections. It is uncertain to what family the genus 

 belongs ; — surely not to Rhamnacese, to which De CandoUe and Endlicher append 

 it ; for the calyx is not valvate, nor are the rudimentary stamens of the female flow- 

 ers (which alone I have seen) opposite the petals. S. frutescens has not a slender 

 style, as described by De Candolle, but has two large stigmas, much like those of 

 the present plant. 



MALPIGHIACE^. 



93. Galphimia linifolia. Gray, Gen. El. 2. p. 196, t. 173, Sf PL Lindh. 2. p. 

 166. Banks of the Medina River, Texas ; June. 



94. G. linifolia, /3. oblongifolia: foliis fere omnibus oblongis; caulibus difiu- 

 sis. — With the foregoing. 



95. Aspicarpa hyssopifolia {Gray, PL Lindh. 2. p. 167): caulibus e radice lig- 

 nescente plurimis erectis (5 - 12-pollic.) ; foliis concoloribus lineari-lanceolatis imisve 

 oblongis basi rotundatis vel subcordatis arete sessilibus ; floribus axillaribus solita- 

 riis, petaliferis pedunculatis sparsis (pedunculo ebracteato folio breviore, petalis fim- 

 briatis), apetalis prsecocioribus in axillis inferioribus sessilibus; coccis reticulatis 

 dorso acute cristatis, lateribus immarginatis. — On the Rio Grande and Rio Seco ; 

 also on the San Felipe, July ; in flower and fruit ; the fruit chiefly from the abnor- 

 mal and more precocious apetalous flowers, which are closely sessile in the loAver 

 axils. In 1851, Mr. Wright gathered a dwarf or early state, barely a span high, 

 exhibiting abundance of apetalous flowers and fruit, but none other. Stems stri- 

 gose-sericeous. Leaves an inch or less in length, hispid-ciliate, otherwise mostly 

 glabrous, veinless. The later petaliferous and pedunculate flowers are occasionally 

 fruitful. — A. Hartwegiana, Juss., has cordate-lanceolate, glabrate, inconspicuously 

 veiny leaves, on very short petioles, the upper acute and mucronate ; the apetalous 

 fertile flowers subsessile in the lower axils, bibracteate; the sides of the rugose- 



