AGREVIONIA 13RITTONIANA n. sp.
Becoming stout and tall and strongly virgate-branched, 2° 7° high (6° 9' at York Harbor, Maine), the stems sometimes 4"-5" thick at the base, erect, but often leaning under the weight of the heavy fruiting racemes, somewhat aromatic. Stem rough ened with glandular papillae and hirsute with short spreading brownish hair which passes into a downy or pilose-hairy pubes cence in the racemes. Leaves numerous, often ascending or subap pressed,4/-8' long, 2'-4' wide, the villous pubescent leafstalks downy tomentose on the upper side. Leaflets 3-4 pairs or 5-6 pairs on the narrower and longer-petioled lower leaves, often directed sharply forward, strongly veined, becoming thickish and rugose, dark green above and more or less hispidulous or scabrous, at least near the edges, the margins finely ciliolate, below paler and pubescent (soft pubescent to nearly glabrous) with longer usually subapprcssed brownish hairs on the nerves and freely sprinkled with minute glis tening glandules, in shape lanceolate to elliptic or ovate-elliptic, ta pering from near the middle to either end, often decidedly tetragonal or rhomboid, acuminate or very acute, sharply serrate with mucro nulate often deeply cut teeth (rarely with broader even subcrenate teeth), the narrowed base and acuminate apex often entire, usu ally petiolulate or the distal pair sessile and decurrent, the odd leaflet sessile or on a foliolate stalk and frequently pinnatifid at the base, the lateral leaflets more rarely basally pinnatifid, but never on the lower side in the distal pair. A common size of the leaflets is 2'X and extreme size 3 X I /' (on the lower leaves the leaflets arc often shorter and less pointed with more deeply cut narrower teeth). Interposed leaflets 2-7 pairs, fre quently subopposite, narrow, often linear-oblong, the main pair dentate-serrate above the middle, the others much smaller or minute, entire; not seldom a minute pair subtends a pair of leaflets like a set of stipels. Stipules lanceolate to half ovate, laciniate or cut-lobed, the terminal lobe broader and acuminate sometimes with one or two teeth on the inner margin. Main
racemes i 2'—I8' long, obscurely pulverulent beneath the pubes cence, densely flowered except near the base, some of the flowers often subverticillate-clustered, rarely loosely flowered, erect or ascending, at maturity often declined from the weight of the abundant fruit. Flower-buds mammillate ; flowers 3"-5" wide, shorter-pedicelled than in hfrsitta, the petals more rounded, mostly thicker and deeper yellow; anthers smaller with narrower connective ; bracts smaller and less ciliate; bracteoles ovate, short-acuminate, entire or slightly lobed. Mature fruit closely reflexed against the pedicel and stem, large, 2"-3" broad, 3" 4" long, rather long-turbinate, the walls thickened and much indurated, strongly fluted between the deep furrows, minutely puberulent-granular and with traces of appressed hairs, the furrows strigose-canescent ; disk becoming flat or concave, marginless bristles numerous, short, one-quarter to one-third the length of the fruit, at first ascending and erect, finally connivent in a conical mass over the concealed calycular process. Sepals less acuminate than in hirsuta and more canescent within the tip, the apex at ma turity scarcely hooked. The tips of the bracts, sepals and bristles with the callosities tipping the teeth of the leaves early become tinged with reddish-purple. Rootstock much as in hfrsitta, but even stouter, the long roots as in that species slightly thickened throughout and not tubiferous. (Plate 282, fig. 2.) Roadsides and borders of woods, flowering from the end of June to late in August. Usually forming close colonies or com pact groups.
Maine, St. Francis, St. John's River, Aug. to, 1893. M. L. Fernald.
Canada, Notre Dame du Lac, Temiscouata Co. Aug. 6, 1887. John L. Northrop.
New York, near Elizabethtown, Essex Co. Sept. 5, 1892. N. L. Britton •Tannersville, Green Co. Aug. 7, 1891. Miss Anna Murray Vail. White Plains, Westchester Co. Miss Phoebe McCabe.