148 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
Doctor .Coulter’s Sphaeralcea subhastata was a composite species, judging 
from material in the National Herbarium. One specimen of Wright’s collecting 
which he has named “8S. subhastata, n. sp.,” is evidentiy our Sphaeralcea 
arenaria, Another, however, marked in the same way is what we take to be 
S. subhastata. The original description points rather plainly to the second 
plant. 
Sphaeralcea tenuipes Wooton & Standley, sp. nov. 
Perennial from a thick, woody root; stems 30 em. high or less, very slender, 
much branched at the base, simple above, erect or ascending, sparingly stellate- 
pubescent with scattered, yellowish hairs; petioles as long as the blades or 
shorter; blades pedate, the lobes cuneate-oblanceolate, obtuse, 10 to 15 mm. 
long, entire or with 1 or 2 obtuse lateral lobes, rather bright yellowish green, 
sparingly stellate-pubescent on both surfaces; flowers in terminal racemes, soli- 
tary, rather distant, on slender pedicels 7 to 22 mm long; bracts linear-subu- 
late, reddish; calyx 8 mm. high, cleft half or two-thirds the way to the base, 
the lobes lanceolate, attenuate, densely stellate-pubescent; petals cuneate-ob- 
lanceolate to narrowly obovate, obtuse or retuse, 15 mm. long, 5 to 7 mm. wide, 
orange red. 
Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 564301, collected on Tortugas Moun- 
tain southeast of Las Cruces, May 6, 1906, by Paul C. Standley. 
ADDITIONAL SPECIMENS EXAMINED: Tortugas Mountain, alt. 1,320 meters, Sep- 
tember 1, 1908, Wooton & Standley; Tortugas Mountain. April 22, 1894, March 
2, 1902, August 27, 1894, August 29, 1902, Wooton; between El Paso and Monu- 
ment 53, September, 1892, Mearns 992. 
In general appearance this is similar to 8. pedata, but it is less pubescent and 
greener, the petals are narrower, and the flowers are solitary on long, slender 
pedicels instead of fascicled and on short, stout pedicels, 
This may be Sphaeralcea pedata angustiloba A. Gray.’ We have seen no 
material of that subspecies, but the description seems to define a different plant. 
Sphaeralcea tenwipes is rather common among the rough limestone rocks on 
Tortugas Mountain. Tt is a handsome plant, with its almost naked, slender 
racemes of bright colored flowers. Doubtless it occurs in similar situations 
about El Paso, Texas, and in northern Chihuahua. 
LOASACEAE. 
Mentzelia asperula Wooton & Standley, sp. nov. 
Annual with erect, branching stems 30 to 50 em. high, at first scabrous but 
becoming smooth below, the upper branches strongly ascending, the lower 
ones divergent then erect; petioles 1 em. long or less: leaf blades narrowly 
ovate to lanceolate, coarsely and irregularly serrate-dentate, sometimes la- 
ciniately 2 to 4-lobed near the base, hispid with barbed hairs; flowers solitary, 
appearing axillary, really terminal, the stem branching below after the 
flower is well grown, sessile: ‘alyx tube terete, short-clavate, elongating in 
fruit, densely hispid with barbed hairs, the lobes at first narrowly lanceolate, 
acuminate, becoming subulate, persisting on the fruit, 83 to 5 mm. long: petals 
5, ovate to obovate, 6 to 8 mm. long, short-apiculate, orange, deciduous; fila- 
ments shorter than the petals, none of them dilated: fruit cylindric to long- 
clavate, 18 to 25 mm. long; seeds about 8, pyriform, obscurely and bluntiy 
angled, gray, with fine, parallel, curved strix. 
*Proc. Amer. Acad. 22: 292. 1887. 
