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G. Chamissonis. Polemonium capitatum, Esch. Mem. Acad. Petrop. x. 282 (1826). Gilia achilleaefolia, A. Gray, in part, not Benth. A foot high, glandular-puberulent: leaves mostly bipinnately dissected into narrowly linear segments: branches few, naked and pedunculiform, bearing a dense capitate cluster of deep blue flowers: calyx glabrous or glandular-pilose, broad and urceolate, mainly hyaline, only the narrow midribs herbaceous, the hyaline teeth broad and triangular, closing the tube both before and after flowering, only the short setaceous tips recurved-spreading: corolla deep blue throughout; tube cylindric; throat very short and broad; segments oblong, obtuse, scarcely spreading, usually even connivent, the well exserted stamens protruding from the sinuses.

Abundant in the sand hills of San Francisco, and unmistakably the "Polemonium capitatum" of Eschscholtz, being the only Gilia of the shores as explored by him and Chamisso, and the only one anywhere which answers to the description as to the "urceolate whitish calyx, with broad acute teeth, and broad green nerve." Although annual, properly, the root is indeed almost fusiform, and occasionally a plant lives through the winter, to flower for a second season; hence the "perennial" as to the character of the root is excusable. The anthers are almost white, so that in the dry specimens they may have seem to have been "yellow."

G. staminea. Near the preceding but tall and slender, not rarely 3 feet high, not in the least puberulent or glandular, but glabrous except a villous-arachnoid pubescence which is sparse upon the stem, conspicuous on the petioles, and abundant on the calyx: flowers capitate-congested at the ends of the long naked branches: calyx teeth ovate, setaceously acuminate, the midvein of these and the whole body of the calyx (mainly hyaline) densely cobwebbyvillous: corolla light blue, large as in the last; the longexserted anthers nearly white.

Very common throughout the interior of California; strangely referred by Gray to G. capitata.

106

EXCERPTS.

YOUR strictures upon Mr. Sheldon's Astragalus names, in the last number of ERYTHEA, were just to the point; and more of that kind of criticism is greatly needed. Amongst our reformers of nomenclature there is a sad lack of scholarship, and ambitious youths are too eager to do great things in print.-Recent Letter from an Eastern Botanist.

BOTANICAL SCIENCE is, by many, considered as of so easy attainment, that it is not unusual to assign the name of Botanist, to any man whose memory enables him to repeat the nomenclature of perhaps a few hundred plants; howsoever uninformed he may be, of those principles which entitle him, to the real name and character. * * By this degrading idea, men of the first learning and talents in this branch of knowledge, have frequently been levelled with the most superficial enquirers, and the most ignorant pretenders. Hence also this Science, which even in a speculative view, holds no mean rank, and, considered practically, is closely connected with medicine, and with the arts and elegancies of life, has been held forth as a trifling and futile employment. In truth, he properly is entitled, in any degree, to the character of the Botanist, whose acquirements enable him to investigate, to describe, and systematically arrange, any plant which comes under his cognizance. But to these abilities, in order to complete the character, should be united, an acquaintance with the Philosophy of Vegetables, and with the History of the Science, in all its several relations, both literary and practical, from remote antiquity to his own time.-Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England. By RICHARD PULTENEY, M. D., F. R. S. London, 1790.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE COMPOSITÆ.-X.

By EDWARD L. GREENE.

WITH Species No. 8, on page 96 preceding begins the succession of four shrubs, all differing, each in its own way, from the best type of CHRYSOTHAMNUS. They are all, nevertheless, best retained here, at least until better known.

9. C. pulchellus. Linosyris pulchella, A. Gray, Pl. Wright. i. 96 (1852). Bigelovia pulchella, A. Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 643 (1873). Tall and freely branching, the bark quite white: leaves narrowly linear, obtuse, glabrous: heads inch long: large 5-angled achenes glabrous; pappus very firm, copious and accrescent.

Plant of most peculiar aspect, quite suggestive of the Eupatoriaceous genus Carphochote which inhabits the same region. No other Chrysothamnus has such a pappus.

10. C. DEPRESSUS, Nutt. Pl. Gamb. 171 (1848). Linosyris depressa, Torr. in Sitgr. Rep. 161. Bigelovia depressa, A. Gray, 1. c. Of the same general region with the preceding, though of more northerly range, and allied to it.

11. C. albidus. Bigelovia albida, M. E. Jones, in Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xvii. 209 (1882). A most anomalous species, not only by its white flowers. Its corolla is deeply cleft as in no other Chrysothamnus. The leaves are almost terete and not indistinctly punctate as well as very glutinous. The shrub were almost as well referred to the genus Chrysoma; but its involucre is more like that of certain Chrysothamni, namely those here placed toward the end of the series.

All the shrubs that follow are still more notably, are more concordantly, diverse from the typical CHRYSOTHAMNUS. They are of coarser and more broom-like growth, with softer more pithy wood, and the stems are usually clothed at least when young, with a dense white tomentum. The twigs and Erythea, Vol. III., No. 7 [1 July, 1895].

foliage, when bruised, exhale a disagreeable odor of which there is no trace in the typical group. The corollas are usually if not always nearly destitute of a proper limb, the throat being elongated and almost or quite claviform, with only short suberect teeth in place of the usual larger and more or less spreading segments, and the styletips are as commonly, perhaps quite invariably, elongated and filiform like those of the genus Macronema, the one discoid species of which is often mistaken by the inexperienced for "Bigelovia Bolanderi" which differs from this group of Chrysothamnus by its involucre only.

I have long been in a state of hesitancy as to whether this group should not be received as generically distinct from true Chrysothamnus. And again, if these shrubs do not belong to this genus, there is room for dispute as to whether they should form a genus by themselves, or be referred to Macronema, or to the South American Dolichogyne, to which last they bear a striking general resemblance. But the types of Dolichogyne have peculiar style-tips, rather too unlike those of any of our plants; and the bristles of the pappus are perceptibly flattened. But for these two peculiarities of Dolichogyne I should relegate to it all the following:

12. C. graveolens. Chrysocoma graveolens, Nutt. Gen. ii. 136 (1818). Linosyris graveolens, T. & G. Fl. ii. 234 (1842). Bigelovia graveolens, var. glabrata, A. Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 645 (1873). Chondrophora nauseosa glabrata, Rydb. Mem. Torr. Club, v. 317 (1894). Bigelovia dracunculoides, DC. Prodr. v. 329 (1836). Chrysothamnus dracunculoides, Nutt. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 325 (1840). Stout, very leafy almost glabrous shrub usually 3 or 4 feet high, the numerous long branches ending in an ample rounded cymose corymb, the branches of which are more or less tomentulose; leaves ascending, narrowly linear, very acute, 2 or 3 inches long, obscurely 3-nerved, glabrous involucral bracts about 4 in each vertical rank, acute, glabrous even to the margin: corolla with slender tube glabrous or with a few short hairs; the

nearly cylindric throat cleft a fourth to a third the way down; pubescence of the achenes abundant, long, appressed, not very fine style-appendages at least twice the length of the stigmatic portion.

Abundant on alkaline plains east of the Rocky Mountains, from the upper Arkansas and Platte, ranging northeastward to Dakota, then westward along the line of the British boundary possibly as far as British Columbia. Apparently not in the Great Basin unless eastwardly about Salt Lake.

It was doubtless this species which Pursh mistook for the Asiatic Chrysocoma dracunculoides (now Aster dracunculoides) and which in consequence of this error became Bigelovia dracunculoides, DC., and Chrysothamnus dracunculoides, Nutt.

13. C. SPECIOSUS, Nutt. Trans. Am. Phil. Soc, vii. 323 (1840). Chrysocoma nauseosa, Pall. in Pursh Fl. ii. 517 (1814)?? Size of the preceding, but stems more slender, inflorescence more open leaves very narrowly linear, and with the branchlets of the inflorescence minutely whitetomentose involucral bracts firm, acutish, not ciliate, tomentose on the back, or the inner ones glabrous except near the tip, all in vertical ranks of 3 or 4: corolla with slender almost glabrous tube rather longer than the subcylindric throat, this cleft a third of the way down: pappus copious, fine, only delicately scabrous, fuscous at least in age.

A far-western species, the type being of the upper Missouri, but common in Idaho, eastern Oregon, northwestern California and adjacent Nevada. Easily distinguished from C. graveolens by its slender habit, and almost filiform white leaves.

Var. ALBICAULIS Nutt. 1. c. Linosyris albicaulis, T. & G. Fl. ii. 234 (1842). Bigelovia graveolens, var. albicaulis, A. Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 1. c., not of Bot. Calif. Stem and Branches densely lanate-tomentose; foliage as in the type: tube of corolla clothed with delicate long-villous or somewhat arachnoid hairs.

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