- 



232 BOTANY OF THE DEATH VALLEY EXPEDITION. 



-fficidium gayophyti Vizd. 



Black Canon, White Mountains (No. 2084), on Gayophytum ramoaissiiiium. 



USTILAGINACE^ffi. 

 Ustilago minima Arthur. 

 San Francisco Mountain (No. 9), on a grass. 



SFHJERIOIDACEm 



Phleospora bigeloviae Ellis sp. nov, 



Ferithecia erumpent, gregarious, black, irregular in shape and irregularly ruptured 

 above, exposing the mass of vermiform-cylindrical, more or less curved or bent 

 Bporules; these 20-28 by 4-5 fi in size, hyaline, granular, nucleate, on short basidia. 

 The character of the perithecia is about the same as in M'tcropera, but the foliieoloua 

 growth, as well as the nature of the sporules, indicates a closer relationship with 

 1'ltlvoxpora. 



On leaves of Bigelovia, near Tejon Fuss, Kern County, California, July 12, 181)1 ; 

 Death Valley Expedition, No. 2108. 



MELANCONlACEiE. 



Septoglceum fraxini Hark. 



Valley of Kaweah Fiver (No. 2147), on Fraximis oregana. 



BATRACHOSPERMACEm 



Batrachospermum boryanum Sirodot. 



Cottonwood Springs, Vegas Valley, Nevada (No. 389). Determined by W. G. Far- 

 low. This identification is based on the presumptive evidence that the specimens 

 are those of a dioecious species. Plenty of antheridia were found, but no trichogynes 

 nor spores. 



CONFERVACE.53. 

 Cladophora. 



Owens Lake (No. 858). Dr. Farlow refers this remarkable alga to Cladophora, 

 but from lack of sufficient material is unwilling to dispose of it more definitely. 



Owens Lake is an inland, alkaline body of water 24 kilometers long by 14 kilo- 

 meters wide, lying at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, in the desert, at an al- 

 titude of 1,087 meters. It is fed by several fresh-water streams, one of them, 

 Owens Eiver, draining a large area of mountainous country to the northward. 

 The lake has no outlet, but loses its surplus water by evaporation. The water >'s 

 intensely alkaline; so much so that the lake contains no fish and none of the 

 aquatic plants found in fresh- water lakes and in most of the desert pools of ordinary 

 alkalinity. Even the fringe of tule so characteristic of the desert marshes is found 

 about Owens Lake only where the shore is moistened by a stream or spring of fresh 

 water. 



The following analysis of 100 liters of water from Owens Lake show its principal 

 chemical constituents. 1 



Grams. 



Potassium sulphate 644.87 



Sodium sulphate 929. 07 



Sodium carbonate 2, 410. 80 



Sodium chloride 2 328. 30 



Silicic acid 17.21 



G, 360. 25 

 1 Loew in Annual Report of the Wheeler Survey for 1876, p. 190 (1876.) 



