BOTANICAL REPORT. 
447 
channeled on the upper surface, and keeled on the lower one, at least toward the base, 
leaving a triangular scar after falling off. They are J—1 inch, rarely as* much as 1J 
inches long, and J line, or sometimes, in the upper half, even 1 line, wide; in young and 
vigorous shoots, I have seen the leaves flatter, shorter, and broader, almost lanceolate. 
Their surface usually is perfectly glabrous; in specimens from Carson Lake, however, 
I find the younger leaves covered with a rough and sometimes branched pubescence. 
The leaves are sometimes on the lower part of the branches opposite, but commonly 
alternating in f order. The staminate and pistillate flowers are both very imperfect, 
but very different in their arrangement and structure; they usually occur on the same 
plant, though some plants seem to bear scarcely any but staminate, others only pistil¬ 
late, flowers. The staminate flowers are crowded into a deciduous spike or ament, 
terminating the branches. This spike is, before the flowers open, 3-5 lines long and 
1J.lines thick, and very compact, exhibiting only the rhombic surfaces of the scales; 
afterward it elongates to the length of 5—9 lines, showing the deciduous anthers under 
and between the separated scales. The spike consists of 25—35 peltate angular scales, 
pointed at the upper end, which cover 3—5 broadly oval anthers, sessile on the rhachis, 
i ^ ne long, 2-celled, opening laterally. The fertile flowers are usually solitary in the 
axils of the leaves and sessile; in some specimens, I find a secondary flower just below 
the primary one, and sometimes even below a branch, springing from the same axil; 
sometimes they are aggregated on abbreviated branchlets, forming irregular clusters. 
The flower consists of a tubular calyx with an inconspicuous rim, investing the lower 
half of the ovary, which is terminated by two unequal subulate stigmas, lateral in 
regard to the stem. In the fruit, this rim is enlarged to a broad, circular, spreading 
3-5 lines in diameter, green or sometimes red, which surrounds the upper third 
of the fruit. The flattened vertical seed, inclosed in the membranaceous utri cuius, is 
about 1 line in diameter, and contains a spiral embryo without an albumen, as already 
demonstrated and figured by Professor Torrey in Fremont’s Report. 
The Greasewood is found in flower from June to August. 
. The form from Carson Lake seems to be distinguished not only by the pubescence 
of the younger parts of the plant, but also by its more squarrose growth, its subdioe- 
cious flowers, and its aggregated fertile flowers and fruits; but the Grreasewood of other 
localities is also often subdioecious, so that when first described, it was considered a 
truly dioecious plant. 
George Engelmann. 
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Botanical 
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