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SIDA, L. Bentham has well indicated the conniving or erect tips or points (when there are any) of the carpels for a good character of Sida, as distinguished from Anoda, &c. To the peculiar sections named in Pl. Fendlerianæ, viz. Pseudo-Malvastrum (the N. American species of which are S. hederacea, S. lepidota [1], and S. cuneifolia, Gray) and Pseudo-Napæa, a third may be added, CALYXHYMENIA, for species which have the ebracteolate calyx much accrescent around or under the fruit, and membraneous or scarious, — the name taken from S. calyxhymenia, Gay, of Australia, and the section therefore including the Fleischeria of Steudel and Steetz. Our species, S. physocalyx, Gray, Pl. Lindh. ii. 163, in which the 5-parted and angulate-bladdery fruiting calyx imitates that of Nicandra, has rather peculiar and very thin-walled reticulated indehiscent carpels with a beak-like apex. The homonymous S. physocalyx of F. Müller, from Australia, is much later, and will find another name. Our species of the section Malvinda appear to be as follows.

SIDA, § MALVINDA

1. Species with a somewhat Stylosanthoid habit; the sessile or short-peduncled flowers mainly at the summit of the low stems or branches and involucrate by petioled leaves: petals reddish-purple.
   • S. CILIARIS, L. Reaches Florida, and includes S. involucrata, A. Richard, and S. anomala, St. Hil.
   • Var. FASCICULATA, the narrow-leaved Texan and Mexican form of the species. S. fasciculata, Torr. & Gray. S. anomala, var. Mexicana, Moricand, which appears to be likewise S. muricata, Cav. Ic. vi. 78, t. 597. Malvastum linearifolium, Buckley, Proc. Acad. Philad. 1861, 449, is the same.
2. Species with flowers not involucrate, either solitary or clustered in most of the axils, or barely paniculate at the summit: calyx 5-angled, and petals mostly yellow.
   • Stems diffusely decumbent or prostrate and filiform: petioles and peduncles long and slender: leaves somewhat cordate, small.
     • S. DIFFUSA, HBK., with hardly a doubt, although the flowers are not "violet," nor the fruit depressed at summit. S. filiformis, Moricand, and S. filicaulis, Torr. & Gray. Texan, Arizonian, and Mexican.
     • S. SUPINA, L'Her. W. Indian and on the Florida Keys.
   • Stem erect: leaves rather long-petioled and nearly all cordate or subcordate; flowers not long-peduncled: carpels 10–12, bi-mucronate or 2-awned.
     • S. CORDIFOLIA, L. Reaches the Florida Keys.
     • S. TRAGLÆFOLIA, Gray, Pl. Lindh. ii. 164. Raised from Wright's seeds supposed to have been gathered in Texas, but probably in S. Arizona, as we now have a form apparently of this species; but with leaves less cordate, smaller, and more cinereous, from Arizona, collected by Pringle and by Lemmon; and Palmer brought from Coahuila specimens connecting these with the type.
   • Stems erect and branching: leaves slender-petioled and truncate-obtuse or retuse at base, from ovate-oblong to linear: a small tubercule under the base of the petiole (but this occasionally obsolete): flowers small and nearly all short-peduncled: carpels mostly 5. Species probably not indigenous, even on our southern borders.
     • S. SPINOSA, L., with comparatively broad and green leaves.
     • S. ANGUSTIFOLIA, Lam., with linear or at least narrow and canescent leaves, is doubtfully distinct. it is Englelmann's S. heterocarpa.
   • Stems erect: leaves mainly short-petioled or subsessile, acute or obtuse at base but never cordate, usually destitute of tubercule under the petiole, but this sometimes apparent in S. rhombifolia: carpels 8 to 12.
     • Leaves cuneate-obovate or oblong-obovate to lanceolate, green, at most cinereous puberulent: stems branching, leafy to the top: annuals in the U. S., probably incomers from Tropical America.
       • S. RHOMBIFOLIA, L., with var. CANARIENSIS, Griseb. The genuine plant known by the single subulate awn to the carpels.
       • S. CARPINFOLIA, L. An equally variable species; includes S. acuta, Burm., S. stipulata, Cav., S. glabra, Nutt., &c.
     • Leaves mainly linear or linear-lanceolate and obtuse at both ends: carpels bicuspidate or bimucronate just behind an inflexed short apex, or muticous: indigenous perennials.
       • S. ELLIOTTII, Torr. & Gray, is a completely glabrous species; with some peduncles or pedicels little shorter than the subtending leaf, but many shorter than the calyx, even the long ones not articulated except with the insertion. As far as can be seen, the imperfect specimens from Key West referred by Chapman to S. Lindheimeri belong here.
       • S. NEO-MEXICANA. A span to a foot high, diffusely many stemmed from a ligneous base or root, minutely puberulent, not cinereous: peduncles not articulated, all short or very short: petals orange-yellow often changing to red: mature carpels muticous or barely mucronulate. — S. Elliottii, var.? Gray, Pl. Wright. ii. 21. S. rhombifolia, var.? microphylla, Hemsl. Bot. Biol. Centr. Am. i. 105, small-leaved form. Eastern part of New Mexico, Wright, Thurber, Greene, &c. S. Arizona, Lemmon. Chihuaha, Pringle. San Luis Potosi, Schaffner, Parry & Palmer.
       • S. LINDHEIMERI, Engelm. & Gray, Pl. Lindh. i. 5. S. Elliottii, with var. Texana, Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 681, not of 231. Cinereous-puberulent, at least the lower face of the leaves: slender peduncle about equalling the leaves, articulated above the middle: petals yellow: carpels bicuspidate. Texas, extending into adjacent Louisiana and adjacent Mexico; first coll. by Berlandier.
       • S. LONGIPES, Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 19; name several years prior in publication to S. longipes, E. Meyer in the Flora Capensis. Well marked by its very long and strict peduncles, with articulation a little below the summit, and muticous carpels. It is wholly S. W. Texan.
       • An outlying species not quite of this group, is the following.
       • S. XANTI. A foot or two high, woody below, scabro-puberulent: lowest leaves ovate or subcordate and slender-petioled; upper lanceolate; all an inch or less long, dentate; uppermost small: peduncles surpassing the leaves, articulated toward the summit: petals apparently white but perhaps yellow, almost an inch long: carpels about 10, rugose and glabrate at maturity, bimucronulate, the interior apex not inflexed. — S. Elliottii, var.? Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. v. 154. Cape San Lucas, Lower California, Xantus.
3. Species with calyx not at all angled: flowers in ours long-peduncled, and petals violet.
   • S. FILIPES, Gray, Pl. Lindh. ii. 164, Pl. Wright. i. 19. Texan and Mexican; of the S. paniculata group.

ABUTILASTRUM is a name quite appropriate for another section, namely for Sida Lindeniana, which would be essentially an Abutilon of the section Gayoides except for the uniovulate carpels.

[1] S. hederacea and S. lepidota are now placed in the genus Malvella, as M. leprosa and M. lepidota, together with M. sagittifolia, a segregate from M. lepidota, and the European and South West Asian M. sherardiana.

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