RIBUTIONS FROM THE GRAY HERBARIUM OF HARVARD 
UNIVERSITY, NEW SERIES, No. XXI. 
E NEW SPERMATOPHYTES FROM MEXICO AND 
CENTRAL AMERICA. 
By M. L. FERNALD. 
Presented March 18, 1901. Received March 20, 1901. 
imbristylis melanospora. Glaucous, tufted from a hard base: 
leaves firm, smooth, strongly nerved, 1 to 1.5 mm. wide, tending to 
become involute, the longest barely 1 cm. long, with a short deltoid 
_ Cartilaginous tip: culms compressed, with thin edges, 2 dm. or less high: 
umbel decompound, with very short rays, forming a dense inflores- 
cence 1 to 2 cm. broad; involucre of 2 or 3 very unequal leaves, the 
longest not equalling the mature umbel ; spikelets ovoid-oblong, 3.5 to 
4.5 mm. long, 2 to 2.5 mm. thick: scales ovate, blunt, slightly carinate, 
pale brown with broad white scarious margins: style slender, terete, 
smooth, with 2 pubescent branches ; achenes lenticular, obovoid, broadly 
rounded above, 1 mm. long, brownish black, minutely muriculate. — 
Vera Cruz, low grounds, Vera Cruz, April 23, 1894 (C. G. Pringle, 
no. 5773). Superficially resembling some forms of F. polymorpha, 
Boeckl., but differing in the paler and smoother leaves, the broader white 
margins of the scales, the very different blackish achene, and the slender 
(not compressed) smooth style. 
- alamosana. Low tufted annual, about 1 dm. high: leaves flat, 
Smooth, mostly much shorter than the slender flexuous culms, rarely 
longer ; the sheaths densely ciliate: umbels decompound, with 3 to 7 
slender lax unequal rays, the longest 2 or 3 cm. long, the spikelets 
Mostly long-pedicelled ; involucre of 2 or 8 unequal leaves, the longest 
equalling or exceeding the rays; spikelets pale straw-colored or whitish, 
ovoid-oblong, acutish, 2.5 to 3.5 mm. long, 1 to 1.75 mm. thick: scales 
Ovate, acutish, or the lowest mucronate, slightly carinate: style com- 
Pressed, pubescent, with 2 branches; achene barely 1 mm. long, broadly 
cuneate-obovoid, with 10 or 12 obscure longitudinal bands, white, pearly 
and finely muriculate all over. — Sonora, Alamos, Sept., 1890 (Zdw. 
