^84 FLORA OF TEXAS. 



BYRONIA, L. 



Floioers monoecious or dioecious ; calyx 5-toothed ; petals 

 5, distinct, or united at the base ; stamens 5, triadelphous ; 

 anthers tortuous; style mostly 3-cleft; fruit ovate or glo- 

 bose, smooth, few-seeded. 



B. BoYKiNii, Torr. and Gray. Rough pubescent; leaves 

 broadly cordate, 3-5-lobed, the lateral lobes entire or toothed, 

 the middle one cuspidate; sterile and fertile /o?^er5 inter- 

 mixed, 3-5 in a cluster, short pediceled; styles united; 

 fruit 3-seeded, the seed 3-toothed at the base; flowers 

 greenish white; ^erri/ crimson. 



DISCANTHERA, Torr. and Gray. 



Flowers monoecious. — Sterile flowers: (7rtZ?/a: obsolete ; 

 petals 5, ovate, united at the base into a flattish nearly 

 rotate corolla; stamens ^y filaments very short, connate; 

 the anthers forming a flat peltate disk, opening all around 

 the even continuous margin, both superior and inferior 

 surfaces furnished with a minute ciliaie fringe; disk and 

 rudiment of the ovary none. — Fertile flowers: Calyx 

 produced beyond the ovary into a filiform tube, the teeth 

 obsolete ; petals nearly as in the sterile flowers ; rudimentary 

 stamens no\\Q\ dish none; 02^«ri/ 3-celled, with apparently 

 about 6 erect or ascending ovules; seeds 3-4 or 6, large, 

 flat. — A slender trailing or climbing herb, with pedately 

 dissected leaves and simple tendrils ; floicers white, very 

 small; the sterile in filiform often somewhat compound 

 racemes, the fertile ones solitary in the same axil on sliort 

 peduncles. 



D. dissecta. Stems slender ; leaves ternately divided, 

 the divisions attenuated and linear at the base, or petiolu- 

 late, the petiolules slightly margined; the terminal divi- 

 sion 3-parted; the lobes irregularly toothed or sinuate, the 



