38 Echites difformis. 



Root perennial, stem scandent, red. Leaves opposite, lanceolate, 

 cval-lanceolate, and even oval above, lower ones linear, or nearly 

 so, on short petioles, acuminate, grass-green, having a silky pubes- 

 cence underneath, thickest on the costa and veins. Flowers small, 

 straw-yellow, borne in trichotomous eorymbs or cyinose racemes, 

 which are sometimes axillary, at others originate from between the 

 petioles Corolla funnel-shaped, the tube obscurely four furrowed, 

 border five-cleft, the segments as in Parsonsiaof R. Brown, equilate- 

 ral, ovate, the mouth lined with an aggregation of soft, villous hairs. 

 Calix sulphur-yellow, angular at the base, five-toothed, the teeth 

 acute, and carmine red. Anthers simple, narrow-sagittate, and rigid, 

 adhering to the middle of the annulate two-lobcd stigma which 

 crowns a style nearly as long as the stamens, and Y^ry viscid Germs 

 two, embedded at base in a glandular, five toothed torus. Follicles 

 very long, slender and straight. Grows in damp rich soils and 

 swamps in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. 



Browne, in his history of Jamaica, designated a genns of lactes- 

 cent plants with twining stems, opposite and s,mooth shining leaves, 

 and eymose or corymbose flowers, by the generic appellation Fchitcs, 

 from *%«, a serpent, or viper. Professor Marty n supposes this name 

 to have been chosen on account of the deleterious properties of the 

 plants of the tribe it was to comprise, and for the propriety of the 

 name, the smooth serpentine habit of all the species appears to 

 afford an additional reason. 



