174 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
loftiest trees of the forest; and Baird says it is used by the natives 
for dyeing a fine scarlet colour. The branchlets are slender, oi 
a pallid green, not more than ^ to f line diameter, with inter- 
nodes to 2 inches apart. The leaves are very small and 
membranaceous, not exceeding 1 line in length. The male 
spikelets, generally about six, are crowded together in a capitate 
form around each node ; the spikelets are subglobose, 1 to line 
diam., composed of about five pairs of closely imbricated invo- 
lucels, which are rounded above, and concave, somewhat fleshy, 
of a dark ruddy colour, and opake ; the perigonium, of the same 
size, is of a reddish hue, beyond which six to eight bright yellow 
sessile anthers are exserted. The fructiferous spikelets, on 
distinct specimens, are usually solitai’y in each axil ; each 
spikelet is supported on a very slender pedicel, 2 to 3 lines in 
length, which is deflected ; it . is acutely elliptic, 3 lines long, 
including the two terminal achenia, which are half-enclosed 
wfithin the last pair of involucels ; the involucels are in three 
imbricating pairs, with two pairs of bracts at base ; they are ob- 
long, rather obtuse, of a greenish-brown colour, becoming some- 
what reddish, with a very narrow white margin ; the achenia are 
acuminately oblong, trigonous, 3 lines long, li line broad, 
granularly striated, of a dark ruddy brown, with a somewhat 
3-lobed white gland in the apex, which is perforated for the 
passage of the tubillus, this being scarcely exserted and lace- 
rated at its apex*. 
11. Ephedra frustillata, n. sp. ; — nana, ramosissima ; ramis 
ramulisque iterum ramosis, brevissimis, oppositis, vel ssepe 
4-natim verticillatis, sulcatis, granuloso-asperatis, rufo-auran- 
tiacis, singulis imo vaginatis; foliis axfllaribus, oppositis, 
parvis, ovatis, concavis, rubescentibus, crassiusculis, margine 
vix marginatis, primum usque ad medium in vaginam 2-den- 
tatam connexis, serius disruptis : spicellis 6 in apice ramu- 
lorum ultimorum solitariis, sessilibus, subovatis; involucellis 
per paria 4-6, decussatim oppositis, et basi nexis, crebre im- 
bricatis; perigonio 2-labiato, involucello 2-plo longiore, la- 
biis adpressis, rotundatis ; antheris 5, globosis, in colunmam 
exsertam crebriter sessilibus. — Patagonia ; v. s. in herb. Hook, 
et Mus. Brit., Port Desire (Darwin). 
A stunted shrub, apparently not more than 4 inches in height, 
with a repent caudex, out of which the somewhat ascendent 
branches originate, which immediately divide themselves at every 
half-inch distance into verticillated ramifications round each 
axil, the ultimate ones being floriferous, with a pair of short 
* This species is shown in Plate 79 a. 
