Tas. 6142. 
JAMESIA americana. 
Native of The Rocky Mountains. 
Nat, Ord. Saxirragea.—Tribe HypRance. 
Genus Jamesia, Torr. and Gray ;—(Benth. § Hook.f. Gen. Plant., vol. i. p- 
643). - 
JAMESIA americana ; ramulis junioribus petiolis foliis subtus et inflorescentia 
laxe villosis, foliis ovatis obtusis crenato-dentatis supra glabris, pani- 
culis brevibus terminalibus basi foliosis, calycis lobis rotundatis, petalis 
oblongis, 
JAMESIA americana, Torr. J Gray Flor. N. Am., vol. ii. p. 593; Walp. Ann., 
vol. ii. p. 614; A. Gray Plant. Fendl., p- 55 in nota ; Carriére in Rev. 
Hortic., October, 1874, p. 389 cum ic xylog. £ 
First described from imperfect. specimens by Torrey and 
Gray, in 1540, and named by them “ in commemoration of the 
scientific services of Dr. Edwin James, its worthy discoverer, 
the botanist and historian of Major Long’s expedition to the 
Rocky Mountains in 1820, and who during the journey made 
an excellent collection of plants under the most unfavourable 
circumstances.” Those were the days when every traveller 
in the Rocky Mountains carried his life in his hand, and 
when to hold it fast required the subtlety of the savage, plus 
the pluck of the white man. Little was known of this plant _ 
for many subsequent years, not until it was gathered by 
Fendler in 1847, and after another long interval by ©. C. 
Parry, in 1861, in the very spot where James had discovered 
it—namely, the head-waters of Clear Creek, and on Alpine 
ridges east of Middle Park, in the Colorado territory, 
lat. 40° N. Considering the numerous collections that have 
been made in other parts of the Rocky Mountains, and that 
do not contain the Jamesia, it is evident that it is a very 
rare and local plant. 
Though so much more like a Rosaceous plant in habit and 
inflorescence, Jamesia is truly saxifragaceous, and closely 
JANUARY Ist, 1875. 
