92 LEAFLETS. 
knew the genus Frasera and admitted it as good, he could not 
reasonably have referred to Swertia so close an ally of typical 
Frasera as F. thyrsiflora, plainly is. Again: since the Swertia 
of Linnæus which Pursh cites as identical with his own, has 
pentamerous flowers, Pursh must needs have placed his S. fas- 
tigiata in Frasera on account of its tetramery, if be the same 
thing as F. thyrsiflora. 
Nevertheless, allowance must be made for superficiality and 
carelessness everywhere; and if Pursh erred as to the plant’s 
having come from the Missouri Flats, he may have failed to 
examine it closely enough to discover that its flowers were 
tetramerous and that it was a Frasera. Very likely what he 
saw was at best a mere scrap or two. 
But while I should not be surprised were the Montana plant 
spoken of by me heretofore to be proven, some day, to be 
Pursh’s plant, I will now at least give the type before me a diag- 
nosis, and therewith a provisional name as possibly new. 
SWERTIA PARALLELA. Stem simple, stout for the genus, 12 
or 14 inches high, with two pairs of cauline leaves, those from 
the root or rootstock of half the length of the stem, elliptic 
oblong as to the blade, this tapering to a long petiolar base, all 
traversed from base of broad petiole to near the end of the 
blade by about 5 conspicuous whitish parallel veins: inflorescence 
somewhat congested, its more terminal portion almost thyrsoid : 
subulate-lanceolate sepals nearly equalling the lurid-purplish 
not dark-colored corolla: filaments much flattened and oblong- 
liguliform, obtuse at apex behind the anthers : fruit not known. 
Jack Creek Canon, Montana, 15 July, 1896, Rydberg & 
Bessey, n. 4699 of their distribution as represented in U. S. 
Herb. (sheet 390186,. Plant more than other swertias resem- 
bling a Frasera, especially by its notably parallel-veined foliage 
Botanizing among the hills of Monroe County, Wisconsin, in 
early October last, the sight of no autumnal flower of the re- 
gion was more welcome to me than that of what in boyhood we 
