Glabrous slender erect branching annuals, the branches often nearly filiform, with finely dissected petioled leaves, the leaf-segments very narrowly linear. Flowers very small, white, in compound unequal-rayed umbels. Involucre none; involucels of a few small narrow bracts, or none. Calyx-teeth obsolete. Fruit ovate, laterally flattened, tuberculate or bristly; ribs prominent, or obsolete; pericarp thick; oil-tubes solitary in the intervals or also under the ribs, 2 on the commissural side. Stylopodium short, conic. [Greek, scaly-seed, referring to the rough fruit.]

Four species, natives of the United States. Type species: Daucus divaricatus Walt. Fruit tubercled.

Umbel-rays divaricate.

1.

5. divaricatus.

Umbel-rays ascending.

2.

S. patens.

Fruit covered with hooked bristles.

3.

S. echinatus.

39 Sperm lepis Raf Neog 2 1825 Leptocaulis Nutt Dc 1503

1. Spermolepis Divaricátus (Walt.) Britton. Rough-Fruited Spermolepis

Fig. 3161

Daucus divaricatus Walt. Fl. Car. 114. 1788.

Leptocaulis divaricatus DC. Mem. Omb. 39. pl. 10. 1829.

Apium divaricatum Wood, Bot. & Fl. 140. 1870.

Spermolepis divaricatus Britton, Mem. Torn Club 5: 244. 1894.

Very slender and widely branching. Rays of the umbels almost filiform, 1/2'-1 1/2' long, divaricate; flowers about i" broad; pedicels filiform, 3"-6" long; fruit ovate, densely tuberculate, ¥ long, the ribs rather prominent.

Nebraska to Texas, North Carolina and Florida. Also in ballast at Philadelphia. April-May.

1 Spermolepis Divaric Tus Walt Britton Rough Fruit 1504

2. Spermolepis Patens (Nutt.) Robinson. Spreading Spermolepis

Fig. 3162

Leptocauhs patens Nutt.; DC. Prodr. 4: 107. 1830. Apiastrutn patens Coult. & Rose, Rev. no. 1888 Spermolepis patens Robinson, Rhodora 10: 34. 1908.

Erect, slender, 1°-2° high, divergently branched above. Stem-leaves short-petioled, biternately dissected into narrowly linear or filiform segments; umbels terminal, or axillary, 1/2'-1 1/2' broad; rays 3"-6" long; pedicels 1 1/2"'-2 " long in fruit; fruit ovate, slightly more than ¥' long, more or less tuberculate, usually densely so.

Sandy soil, Indiana to Missouri, Nebraska, Texas and New Mexico. June.

3. Spermolepis Echinàtus (Nutt.) Heller. Bristly-Fruited Spermolepis

Fig. 3163

Leptocaulis echinatus Nutt.; DC. Prodr. 4:

107. 1830. S. echinatus Heller, Contr. Herb. F. & M. Coll.

1:73. 1895.

Resembling the preceding species, but lower, seldom over 1° high, the branches ascending or sometimes spreading. Rays of the umbel very slender, 1 1/2 long, or less; fruit about i" long, covered with spreading hooked bristles, the ribs obsolete, the commissure narrow.

Alabama to Missouri, Texas and California. April-May.

3 Spermolepis Echin Tus Nutt Heller Bristly Fruite 1505