78 West American Plants. [ZOE 
BOSCHNIAKIA STROBILACEA Gray. This plant belonging to 
mountainous districts, and parasitic on the roots of Manzanita grows 
in profusion on Mt. St. Helena. Very large and fine specimens 
have also been collected by Dr. Anderson in the Santa Cruz mount- 
ains, and one in the herbarium of the California Academy of Sciences 
collected in the same region by Mr. E. Brooks, June, 1886, has 
the stem divided into two equal branches. Miss Alice Eastwood 
and Mr. Brandegee found it recently on Mt. Tamalpais. . 
The seeds are as Dr. Gray has said deeply favose, but varying in 
size from 1-2 mm. and are very irregular in shape from mutual 
pressure. The outer seed coat is nearly all “ favosity,’’ the inner 
is oval and similarly favose and the germ, which is barely visible to 
the naked eye, is apparently homogeneous and of similar shape and 
markings. 
The accompanying plate (xiii) is photographed from a plant taken 
from the ground on Mt. St. Helena early in February. It was en- 
tirely underground, there was not even a swelling of the ground, 
and its presence was indicated only by the dead and dried spikes of 
the previous year. Upon the single tuber there were nine spikes, 
large and small, and inall the larger ones the flowers were already 
fully formed. The tuber which is usually found on roots of about 
the diameter of a goose-quill or a little larger are often two or 
three inches in thickness, dark brown, with the surface tessellated 
somewhat in the manner of the truffle. It evidently lives for a 
considerable time, drawing sustenance from its host, increasing in 
size and producing year after year in April and May its brqwnish- — 
purple, cone-like spikes, 
Dr. Gray says:* “ I have now reason to think that 2. Hookeri and 
my &. strobilacea may be the same.” If he is correct, which is 
probable, the much to be preferred descriptive name will have to be 
given up. . 
COLOCHORTUS ALBUS Dougl. is often rose-colored. It is usually 
of that color but rather pale on Santa Cruz Island, as Mr. Brande- 
gee noted, but appears in its usual pearly white on the mountains 
back of Santa Barbara. On Ben Lomond, in Santa Cruz County, 
it runs through all the shades from deep rose-color to white. 
The deeper color appears to be quite frequent in the southern _ 
*Proc. Am. Acad, xxii, 312. 
