A rather stout herb, with a short rootstock, red fibrous roots and equitant leaves, the basal ones longer than those of the stem. Flowers numerous, yellowish, small, in a dense terminal woolly cymose panicle. Perianth 6-parted to the summit of the ovary, the outer segments smaller than the inner. Filaments filiform, longer than the perianth; anthers linear-oblong, versatile. Ovary 3-celled; ovules few in each cavity,-borne on fleshy placentae; style very slender, declined. Capsule enclosed by the withering-persistent perianth, nearly globular, 3-valved. Seeds about 6 in each cavity, flattened, nearly orbicular, peltate. [Greek, referring to the round fruit.]

A monotypic genus of southeastern North America and the West Indies.

1. Gyrotheca Tinctoria (Walt.) Salisb. Red Root. Paint Root

Fig. 1319

Gyrotheca tinctoria Salisb. Trans. Hort. Soc. 1:

227. 1812. Lachnanthes tinctoria Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1: 47.

1816. Gyrotheca capitata Morong. Bull. Torn Club 20:

472. 1893. Not Anonymo capitata Walt.

Stem 1 1/2°-2 1/2° tall, glabrous below, pubescent or woolly above. Leaves 2"-5" wide, acuminate, the basal ones shorter than the stem, the upper reduced to bracts; panicle 2-5' broad when expanded, dense and almost capitate when young, white-woolly; flowers 4"-s" broad, bracteolate, the perianth yellow and glabrous within; style about as long as the stamens; pedicels stout, about as long as ihe capsule, rather shorter than the bractlets; capsule about 3" in diameter.

In swamps, eastern Massachusetts to New Jersey and Florida, mostly in pine barrens near the coast. Also in Cuba. Carolina or Indian red-root. Spirit-weed. July-Sept.