name of O. clavata[1] most appropriate. A singular plant, with the habit of a Ranunculus, but nearly related to Saururus, was also found in this neighborhood among grass on the banks of the Rio Grande. The genus has been described by Nuttall from specimens collected by him in California, but whether his Anemopsis californica is specifically identical with the new Mexican plant, remains to be seen, as this last has regularly 6 leaved involucres, about 6 stamens, and is perfectly glabrous.
While the last mentioned plants indicate that we approach another botanical region, we are surprised to meet here with Polygonum amphibium, common in the old and in the new world, and Cephalanthus Occidentalis, so widely diffused in the United States.
The famous desert, the Jornada del Muerto, furnished, as was to be expected, its quota of interesting plants. A Crucifera near Biscutella, of Europe, but with very short styles and white flowers, is here met with abundantly. I had considered it as the type of a new genus, when I found in Hooker's London Journal of Botany of February, 1845, Harvey's description of his new Californian genus Dithyrea,[2] which probably must be made to embrace our plant as a second species.
- ↑ Opuntia clavata, n. sp. prostrata, ramulis ascendentibus, obovatoclavatis, tuberculatis; areolis orbiculatis albo-tomentosis, margine superiore setas albas spinescentes gerentibus; aculeis albis complanatis, radiantibus, 6-12 minoribus, centralibus 4-7 majoribus, longioribus deflexis; floribus terminalibus; areolis ovarii 30-45 albo-tomentosis, setas albas 10-15 gerentibus; sepalis interioribus ovato-lanceolatis acuminatis s. cuspidatis; petalis obtusis, erosis saepius mucronatis; stigmatibus 7-10 brevibus erectis; bacca elongato-clavata, profunde umbilicata, setaceo-spinosa.
About Albuquerque (W.,) about Santa Fe, on the high plains, never on the mountains, (Fendler.) Mr. Fendler informs me that the ascending joints sprout from or near their base, and that in this manner they finally form a large spreading mass, often 2 and even 4 feet in diameter, to which the white shining spines give a very pretty appearance. Joints or branchlets 112 to 2 inches long, tubercles at their base smaller, with shorter spines, towards the upper and thicker end larger, with stouter and longer spines; radial spines 2 to 4, central ones from 4 to 9 or 10 lines long; ovary 15 lines long, flower yellow, 2 inches in diameter; stigmas only 112 line long; fruit apparently dry and spiny, 112 to 134 inch long; seeds smoother than those of most other opuntiac, rostrate, with a circular embryo. Apparently near Opuntiae platyacanthae, Salm.; but the tuberculated joints and the shape of the embryo approach it closely to O. cylindraceae.
- ↑ Dithyrea, Harv., char, emendat. Sepala 4 basi aequalia oblongo-linearia. Petala 4 spathulata, basi ampliata. Stamina 6 tetradyhama, libera, edentula. Stylus brevissimus, stigma incrassatum. Silicula sessiiis, biscutata, basi et apice emarginata, alatere piano-compressa. Semina in loculis solitaria, compressa, inimarginata, horizontalia. Cotyledones planae radiculae descendenti septum spectanti aceumbentes.
Annual (all?) plants of California and New Mexico, with stellate pubescence, repando-dentate leaves, yellow (?) or white flowers in simple terminal racemes.
Dithyrea Wislizeni, n. sp., erecta incano-pubescens ramosa, foliis brevi-
