! 



^ 



^ 



K. 



GREE]N^E PTELEA rS THE WEST AND SOUTHWEST. 77 



fc^liowing me specinienH iiud remarkin<j: that tlio shrub was, at the time of collectinjr, 

 in young leaf and early flovvt^r, but that on wonie branches, or else upon the ground 

 beneatli the bushes, IMr. Orcutt had first detected a few fruits, of which they suc- 

 ceeded, through dihgent Hearch, in o1)taining a small quantity for distribution. 



In addition to tliis sheet of type specimens I have one duplicate sheet before me, 

 and that an excellent one, that he presented to the California Academy rtt the time. 

 Another, less amijle, \vas at the same time sent to the Herbarium uf the Department 

 of Agriculture (now in the National Herbarium) at Washington; but with this there 

 are five good fruits. A sheet in the herbarium of Capt. Jolui Donnell Smith, of 

 Baltimore, in respect to the size of the branches and copiousness of flowers, the best 

 of all, is also a part of the original collection as made by IVIr. Orcutt. 



TJie volume of Davenport Academy Proceedings, in which the species was pub- 

 lished, was issued in 1884. Since that date there have been at least two other collec- 

 tions of Ptelea made un the peninsula, one by Mr. Orcutt at Santo Tomas, a locality 

 not maritime but at some distance inland among the mountains; this in 1SS6, and 

 another by ]\lr. B!'an<legee from an inland tlesert district inut-h further southward; 

 this in 1889. All these specimens, of both cf)llectors, have been di^^tributed for P, 

 aptcra, yet are not at all of that species. Their respective characters as distinct have 

 been given above. 



Of the figure, publiHhe<l in the third volume of Garden and Forest, purporting to 

 represent P. aptera, there is somewhat to be said. As to the flowering branch, with 

 immature and not even full-gruwn foliage, one can but admire its faithfulness to the 

 specimens of the maritime original as in the herbaria; but the right-hand llgure 

 represents, first of all, a stntng phytologic improbability. In no species of Ptelea is 

 the foliage much more llian half growii at flowering time; but here w^e have tlie 

 n^presentation of a fruiting specimen witli foliage exactly like that of the flowering 

 specimen, even as to size. This can not be true to nature. Again, no herbarium 



specimens of I\ aptera — I mean the original, from Punta Banda — had been collected 

 in mature foliage, or even with fruits attached to the branches, at the time that 

 figure was made. Therefore the drawing nuist be thought of as in a degree fictitious. 

 And a third reason for my thinking it a Ha<l piece of patchwork is that no such fruits 

 as those figured were collected either by Parry or Orcutt, at least at the original sta- 

 tion of P. aptera. They differ from the originals greatly in size, being nearly three 



titncs as large, and they are most different in respect to outline. No one having the 

 least command of botanical terminology could have described those figured as 

 "broadly ovate" or as ''round-ovate." Their form is subquadrate-oval; also their 

 mai^ins are evidently obtuse, while in real P. aptera they are not only acute but 

 carinately so. 



Of the artist's skill and faithfulness to the materials set before him to bo put 

 together, there is no question. The character of the tuberculation marking the 

 whole surface of the nut. and so completely unlike that of any genuine Ptelea, is well 

 brought out. 



Now, since all the spe<'ime!is on whirh this figure is based were collected either 

 by Dr. i^irry or Mr. Orcutt, I tliink it ]>r()bal>le tluit Mr. Orcutt alone collected the 

 fi'uits figured, and not at Pnnta Banda, but at some distance inland, namely at Santo 

 Tomas, and in the middle of the month of 3Iay, in 188G, or three years and nearly 

 three months later than the date of the gathering of the !*unta Banda type. The 

 only sheet I have seen of the Santo Tomas shrub bears specimens in mature foliage, 

 but there is no fruit. On characters of the foliage alone, I have been obliged to 



make these specimens the type of a new species. But I trust that time and investi- 

 gation may verify my conjecture that fruits of the garden and forest plate are those 



of mv P, ohscura. 



Dr. Parry's remark that the main difference between the fruit of P. aptera and 

 the other species of the genus lay in the absence of the wing, is one that came of a 



