130 MEMOIRS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 



[Plate 52.] 

 52. Polygonum spergulariaeforme Meisner. 



Polygonum coarctatum Douglas; Hooker, Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 133 (1834), not Willd. ; 

 :\Ieisner in DC. Prodr. 14: 101; S. Watson, Bot. King's Exp. 316, Bot. Calif. 2: 12. 



Polygonum spergulariaeforme Meisner; Small, Bull. Torr. Club, 19: 366 (1892). 



Annual, scurfy throughout but especially about the nodes, glabrous, rather slender 

 and Aviry. Stem mostly erect, 1-5 dm. long, nearly simple and rather strict or corym- 

 bosely-branched and sometimes diffuse, more or less angled; leaves linear-oblong or 

 linear-lanceolate, sometimes oblanceolate, .4-3 cm. long, 1-7 mm. broad, occasionally 

 almost linear, acute, sessile, usually revolute, conspicuously articulated to the ocreae; 

 ocreae funnelform, .5-1 cm. long, two-parted when young, at length lacerate; inflores- 

 cence axillary, consisting of clusters with several flowers, confined mostly to the ends of 

 the branches and appearing as terminal racemes by the shortening of the internodes ; 

 pedicels about 1.5 mm. long; calyx whitish or pink, 4 mm. long, five-parted to near the 

 base, the segments obovate, obtuse, each with a dark green nerve; stamens eight, in- 

 cluded, the filaments hardly dilated at the base; style .5-8 mm. long, three-parted to the 

 middle or sometimes to near the base, included; achene triquetrous, 3.5-4 mm. long, 

 oblong, black, smooth and shining except the more or less granular apex and angles. 



Northwest Territory and British Columbia to California and Colorado. 



