300 ey Recent Literature. [ZOE 
dodendron Sonomense, for example, where the author is apparently 
unaware of what is a familiar fact to every other botanical explorer 
of the region—that rose-colored forms-of 2. occidentale are found 
in nearly every district mixed with the white ones. In regard to 
their odors it has become painfully evident that his olfactory organs 
are in a highly pathological state. Pentstemon Sonomense—Sonoma 
appears to be an ominous name in botany—which the author de- 
scribes as a foot high and with white woolly anthers, yet compares 
with P. cordtfolius having glabrous anthers and _ sarmentose 
branches often 8-10 feet long, is well known from Mount St. Helena 
and other elevations of the inner Coast Range. It had no pressing 
need of a name having already been called Gerardia fruticosa, 
Pentstemon Lewisit, Pentstemon Menziesti, P. Newberryi, and var. 
Robinsont, and figured under three of these names. 
Tellima nudicaulis was stillborn. Mr. Canby on seeing the ad- 
vance sheets made note in the Botanical Gazette,* that the plant 
was the same one he had distributed as 7: fentandra, and Prof. 
Eaton had described as Heuchera Williamsonii. The species of 
Eriogonum show that the author has begun work among the nu- 
merous forms of £. vimineum and £. virgatum, and one can hardly 
anticipate without a shudder the crop that is to follow. 
It is usually considered proper in describing new species to in- 
dicate as nearly as possible the time of flowering and the locality 
from which the plant was obtained. It is so much the rule indeed 
that a failure in these respects may leave an author open to the sus- 
picion of intentionally withholding a species from scrutiny. In the 
case of ‘‘ Biolettia, a New Genus of Compositz,’’ all reference to 
the season of flowering is omitted, and the habitat is said to be the 
the “banks of the lower San Joaquin.’’ As the San Joaquin 
drains the southern half of the great valley of California, and tide 
water must extend about seventy miles, the phrase would apply to 
a great distance in the center of the principal agricultural region of © 
the State, where it is not difficult to give nearly exact localities. 
The station known to the writer, which is probably not precisely _ 
the original one, is within the fence on the northern side of the 
county road running from Lathrop to Banta, between the west bank 
of the San Mme River and Paradise Cut, but nearer the latter. : 
sneering apace pai 
*Bot. Gaz., xvi, ae. 
