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podium labeled "Huautzontli," which proved to be a species not represented in the United States National Herbarium, nor included in Dr. Urbina's Catálogo de Plantas Mexicanas del Museo Nacional de México. More remarkable still, the name huauzontli is applied in that work to the European plant, Chenopodium bonus-henricus, already mentioned; and in Dr. Urbina's list of food plants, published in Las plantas comestibles de los antiguos Mexicanos, neither this nor any other species of Chenopodium is included. The writer ventures, therefore, to describe it as a new species and, in honor of the distinguished lady who has brought it to his notice, he proposes for it the name Chenopodium nuttalliae. A more detailed account of this plant, together with several other allied species, will be given in his forthcoming paper on the Economic chenopods and amaranths of America, to be published in the Journal of Heredity.

Chenopodium nuttalliae Safford, sp. nov.

Uauhtzontli, or Huautzontli, of the Aztecs; Huauzontle, or Guausoncle, of the modern Mexicans. Chenopodium bonus-henricus Auct. Mex. (non C. bonus-henricus L. Sp. Pl. 218. 1753.).

An odorless herbaceous annual resembling Chenopodium album, with upright striate slightly mealy stem and branches and pale green foliage. Leaves alternate, variable in shape; petioles slender, usually equal to the blade in length; blades triangular-ovate or rhomboid, the lower ones sinuate-dentate and somewhat hastate, obtuse and apiculate at the apex, those of the inflorescence lanceolate or rhomboid; flowers on short branches closely crowded and forming dense terminal paniculate clusters; branches of the inflorescence sparsely mealy or scurfy; sepals sparsely mealy, green, white-margined, ovate, keeled, when mature convex and connivent over the fruiting achene; the latter, loosely covered by the calyx, lenticular or discoid, about 2 mm. in diameter with the closely adherent pericarp pale yellow, rose-colored, or orange, or sometimes dark brown and smaller (1.4 mm. in diameter), with a distinct marginal ring; seed horizontal, shaped somewhat like a miniature nautilus shell, in both the brightly tinted and in the dark-brown achenes horn-colored.

Type in the United States National Herbarium, cultivated in the vicinity of Mexico City and purchased in the market at Xochimilco, November 25, 1917, by Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, the distinguished archeologist and authority on Mexican history and ethnology, in honor of whom the species is named.

1 See Anales del Muséo Nacional, II, 1: 503-591. 1904.

Range: Unknown in a wild state; said by Mrs. Nuttall to be widely cultivated in the states of Michoacan, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Tamaulipas, "a species that the Mexicans have been using from time immemorial."

The name Uauhtli, or Huauhtli, was applied by the Aztecs, not only to their seeds but to the plants themselves. The latter, when cooked for "greens" (Aztec, quilitl) were called huauquilitl. Uauhtzontli, which has been modified to Huausoncle or Guausoncle, may be rendered "seed-heads," or "huautli-crests." It has been given to several other plants beside the one here described. The late Professor Alfredo Dugès of Guanajuato applied it to an ill-smelling Chenopodium called by the Mexicans "quelite hediondo" (stinking greens), of which he wrote: "On en mange les inflorescences cuites, sous le nom de Guausoncle, ou Quauhzontli en mexicain. Triste légume!" By Fray Agustin Vetancurt (1698) the name was given, in the form Cuauzontli, to Amaranthus leucospermus S. Wats., which he described as growing upright in the form of miniature trees, with entire leaves like those of lengua de vaca (Rumex) and with terminal purple or yellow plumes bearing minute white sesame-like seeds, used for making certain "small tamales called tzoales."2

Dr. Robelo of Cuernavaca, following Alcocer and other Mexican writers, referred the plant here discussed, to Chenopodium bonus-henricus L., with the following note under the names Guausoncle or Huausoncle, the original Aztec form of which, Huautzontli, he translates as "bledos como cabellos." "A garden plant producing a terminal cluster of whitish flowerets, beneath which are developed spikes of edible seeds. They may be dried and kept for a year. When required for use they are put into water and soaked for a day, and may be eaten the day following."3 It is only necessary to look at the acompanying illustration showing a leaf of the species here described compared with one of Chenopodium bonus-henricus L. (fig. 2) to see the dissimilarity of the two plants, and the difference between the

2 See SAFFORD, W. E., A forgotten cereal of ancient America published in the Proceedings of the Nineteenth Congress of Americanists, pp. 286-297. 1917.

3 See ROBELO, CECILIO A., Diccionario de Aztequismos, pp. 577, 579. 1904.

seeds of the two species is equally great, as shown in figures 3, c and 3, e.

Accompanying the seeds and inflorescence heads were the following notes of Mrs. Nuttall. On September 27, 1917, she writes:

This morning I was at the market of Xochimilco and bought fine bunches of Uauhtli in bud, which is eaten as a green vegetable. The spikes are washed and dipped in batter

The

composed of egg, flour, and grated
cheese, and then fried in lard.
ends of several spikes are thus held
together, and it is the custom to seize
the stem and draw them through the
teeth, thus detaching the very palatable
green buds [unripe achenes], which form
thick clusters. The immature infloresc-
ence prepared in the above or in other
ways is called Uauhtzontli.

In a subsequent letter, dated November 25, 1917, Mrs. Nuttall writes:

Huauhzontli combines the properties of a cereal and a vegetable and furnishes a substantial meal. When fresh and the seeds are "in milk" the food is to me delicious. I am told that it is almost as good when prepared from the dried inflorescence.

Fig. 2. Leaves of Chenopodium. a, C. nuttalliae Safford; b, C. bonus-henricus L.; c, C. quinoa Willd. ×}.

The accompanying photographs of achenes and seeds (enlarged 6 diameters) of Chenopodium nuttalliae and those of Chenopodium quinoa Willd., C. bonus-henricus L., and C. album L., species with which it has been confused, show at a glance the characters of each. Figure 3, a, is the common form of the pale yellow, or rose-colored achenes of C. nuttalliae, figure 3, b, the small dark-brown, or "black" form, and figure 3, c, the seeds divested of the pericarp, which in all forms are horncolored, not ivory white, as in C. quinoa, nor black, as in C. album, and they are in the form of a flattened spiral, not ven

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Fig. 3. Achenes and seeds of economic species of Chenopodium enlarged 6 diameters. a, b, c, C. nuttalliae Safford; d, C. quinoa Willd.; e, C. bonus-henricus L.; f, C. album L.

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tricose, or spheroid, as in C. bonus-henricus. Figure 3, d, is the white-seeded form of Chenopodium quinoa of Peru and Bolivia; figure 3, e, the seeds of the European "Good-King-Henry" or "all-good" (C. bonus-henricus); and figure 3, f, the achenes of lambs-quarter (C. album) the black seeds of which are used for food by the Indians of our Southwest, and are grown as a grain-crop in various parts of India.

BIOLOGY.-The biological significance of false witches'-brooms

in Ericaceous plants. JEAN DUFRENOY, Station Biologique d'Arcachon. (Communicated by G. N. Collins.)

Peculiar shoots showing infection by Exobasidium unedonis Maire Gloeosporium conviva Maire, have been recorded by Professor Maire on Arbutus unedo in Algeria, and compared by him to witches'-brooms. Other peculiar shoots showing infection by Gloeosperium myrtillus sp. nov. have been seen by the author and similarly compared.

Witches'-brooms, which had long been considered parasitic infections, are viewed by Vuillemin ('17) as symbiotic associations in which profit is derived by both symbionts, mutually, or at least alternately. "Witches'-brooms are to the shoot what mycorrhizas are to the root."

In view of this new interpretation, the significance of the "false witches'-brooms" in Ericaceae may be discussed here, from biological data recorded by the author.

I. Duration of life. Winter dormancy ends sooner in witches'brooms than in healthy shoots as recorded by Schellenberg for Firs, Betula, etc. Maire ('16) observed that the false witches'brooms of Arbutus develop in February in Algeri ehen no healthy shoots have appeared, and also die much soonr, being actually wilted before the normal shoots have finished growing. In Arcachon, however, false witches'-brooms were still found living in November. Since the premature death of the brooms in Algeria may be due to lack of water, some discussion of transpiration conditions is necessary.

II. Transpiration. It has been assumed that mycelia growing into the vascular strands of witches'-brooms hinder the

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