114 jiemoies from the department of botany of columbia college. 



[Plate 44.] 

 44. Polygonum ramosissimum Michaux. 



Pohjijnnmn mmosimmum Michaux, Fl. Bor. Am. 1 : 237 (1803); Willdenow, Sp. PL 

 2: 450; Persoon, Syn. 1: 439; Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 269; Muhlenberg, Cat. 41; Eaton, 

 Man. 370; Sprengel, Syst. 2: 260; Meisner, Monog. 91 and in DC. Prodr. 14: 97; A. 

 Gray, :\Ian. 388; Wood, Am. Bot. and Fl. 283; Coulter, Man. Bot. Rocky Mt. Reg. 319; 

 Greene, Fl. Francis. 134. 



Polijyonum avicidare var. erectum S. Watson, Bot. King's Exp. 315 (1871), not 

 jNIeisner. 



Polyyoihum erectum S. Watson, Bot. Calif. 2: 11 (1880), not Linnaeus. 



Annual, glabrous, somewhat scurfy, more or less suffruticose, of a bright green or 

 yellowish green color, woody. Stem erect or ascending, 1-3 dm. long, somewhat virgate, 

 nearly simple or diffusely branched, conspicuously ridged ; branches ascending or spread- 

 ing; leaves lanceolate, oblong or linear-oblong, .7-4 cm. long, .1-8 cm. broad, acuminate 

 at both ends or acute at apex, short-petioled, persistent, joined to the ocreae by conspicu- 

 ous articulations, nerves either prominent or indistinct on the lower surface ; ocreae fun- 

 nelform, oblique, .5-1.5 cm. long, two-parted when young, very early becoming lacerate, 

 silvery, at length turning brown ; inflorescence axillary, the clusters several-flowered ; 

 pedicels 1.5-2 mm. long; calyx greenish or yellowish, about 3 mm. long, five-parted or 

 six-parted to near the base, the segments narrowly oblong ; stamens six or fewer, some- 

 times only three, included; style .1 mm. long, three-parted to the base, included; achene 

 triquetrous, 3 mm. long, ovoid, pointed, mostly included or rarely slightly protruding 

 beyond the calyx, black, somewhat granular and not shining. 



From the Northwest Territory south to California, New Mexico, Texas and Illinois ; 

 also along the Atlantic Coast from Maine to New Jersey. 



Polygonum ramosissimum prolificum Small. 

 Polygoituiii nimo^miviavi 'proUficam Small, Bull. Torr. Club, 21: 171 (1894). 



Conspicuously bushy and much branched ; stem erect or nearly so, 6-10 dm. long, 

 rather stout and woody, internodes short, 1-3 cm. long; nodes proliferous, producing 

 two or more branches ; leaves variable in size and narrower than those of the species ; 

 flowers and achenes more numerous than in the normal form. 



Nebraska and Kansas ; also on the coast of Maine. 



