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Desmidiaceae. Microscopic gelatinous plants, of a screen color, growing in fresh water, composed of cells devoid of a silicious coat, of peculiar forms such as oval, crescentic, shortly cylindrical, cylindrical, oblong, etc., with variously formed rays or lobes, giving a more or less stellate form, presenting a bilateral symmetry, the junction of the halves being marked by a division of the green contents; the individual cells being free, or arranged in linear series, collected into fagot-like bundles or in elegant star like groups which are embedded in a common gelatinous coat.
The eruption starts usually with discrete papules, often in stellate groups, and generally arranged symmetrically when on the limbs. These become fused into crimson, slightly raised maculae, which in severe cases become further fused into red thickened patches, in which the papules can still be felt and sometimes seen. Vesicles form, and exudation occurs in only about one-third of the cases.
Muter, according to the appearance they give under the microscope, into five groups: Class I. Hilum and concentric rings visible. All the granules, oval or ovate. Tous-le-mois, potato, arrowroot, etc. Class II. The concentric rings are all but invisible, the hilum is stellate. Maize, pea, bean, etc. Class III. The concentric rings are all but invisible, also the hilum in the majority of granules.
Cushions ¼ in. apart, composed of numerous spines, varying from short and bristle-like to 1 in. in length, stout, flattened, and spear-like. Leaves ¼ in. long. Flowers yellow, 1½ in. across. Fruit 1½ in. long, lemon-yellow when ripe, and covered with stellate clusters of white, bristle-like spines. New Mexico, 1854.
Then there are the columnar cells, found in various parts of the intestines, in which they are closely arranged side by side. These cells sometimes have on the free surface delicate prolongations called cilia. There are besides cells known as spindle, stellate, squamous or pavement, and various other names suggested by their shapes. Cells are also described as to their contents.
Both the corolla and calyx are covered with stellate hairs, among which are embedded shining oil glands, to which the fragrance of the plant is due.
This has a stout stem, about 8 in. high and 3 in. wide, and covered with smooth cone-shaped mammae, with woolly bases and stellate tufts of spines on their tips.
The name for this kind is rather misleading, the spines being both fewer and less conspicuous than in many other species of Mamillaria. Stem about 6 in. high, nearly globose; tubercles rather large, swollen, with tufts of short white wool in their axils, and stellate clusters of spines springing from disks of white wool on the top.
The most marked are those of the leaves, which may be small or large, linear or elliptic or oblong and even rhomboidal in shape, more or less hairy with simple or with stellate branched hairs, and finally of a pure green or of a glaucous color.
Orchids, old gold and violet, cling to the rocks with the white claws of the sea snatching at their toughened roots, and beyond the extreme verge of ferns and orchids on abrupt sea-scarred boulders are the stellate shadows of the whorled foliage of the umbrella tree, in varied pattern, precise and clean cut and in delightful commingling and confusion.
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