An erect perennial herb with slender rootstocks, fibrous roots, erect sparingly leafy stems, the leaves narrowly linear and mostly basal, and numerous small yellowish flowers in a terminal woolly cymose panicle. Perianth campanulate, persistent, of 6 nearly equal woolly erect-spreading segments, slightly united at the base, and adnate to the lower part of the ovary. Stamens inserted on the bases of the perianth-segments; filaments filiform, short; anthers basifixed. Ovary 3-celled; style subulate, at length 3-cleft; ovules numerous, in 2 rows in each cavity. Capsule ovoid, tipped with the style, finally loculicidally 3-valved at the summit. Seeds oblong, ribbed. [Greek, referring to the tufts of wool on the perianth.]

A monotypic genus of southeastern North America, by some authors placed in the Haemodoraceae.

1. Lophiola Americana (Pursh) Coville. Lo-Phiola

Fig. 1326

Conostylis americana Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 224. 1814. Lophiola aurea Ker, Bot. Mag. pl. 1596- 1814. Lophiola americana Coville, Mem. Torr. Club 5: 118. 1894.

Stem stiff, erect, terete, glabrous below, white-woolly above, 1°-2° tall. Leaves equitant, glabrous, much shorter than the stem, the upper ones reduced to bracts; panicle densely white-woolly, composed of numerous few-several-flowered cymes; pedicels short, rather stout, erect or ascending; perianth-segments linear-lanceolate, about 2" long, woolly outside, longer than the stamens and with a tuft of wool at the base within; capsule about as long as the persistent style, shorter than the perianth.

Pine barren bogs, New Jersey to Florida. June-Aug.