374 Californian Lobeliacee. [ZOE 
including one for the broad-leaved variety of P. dedilis, which he 
claims to be specifically distinct. Schénland in Pflanzenfamilien 
Lief., 36, p.68, reduces Palmerella to Laurentia. The three genera— 
Isotoma, Laurentia and Palmerella— differ only in the degree in 
which the stamineal tube is adnate to the corolla and in the irregu- 
larity of the corolla limb; and as Palmerella has been reduced either 
by implication or directly to each of the others, the most convenient 
method of disposing of them would seem to be to unite the species 
under the older generic name. 
The fruit of Palmerella appears to be undescribed. It is nearly 
inferior, clavate, 6-8 mm. long, thin-walled, completely 2-celled, de- 
hiscing by two valves at the apex. The seeds are small, smooth, 
light brown, with minute embryo, truncate or notched at the end 
opposite the radicle. 
Downingia, the showy lobeliaceous plant so common in low 
grounds of our interior valleys and foothills, is separated from all 
its near relatives by its dehiscence. The sessile capsule is en- 
tirely inferior, not even the summit emerging, and therefore un- 
able to open by apical valves, its seeds escape through longitudinal 
fissures. The genus Grammatotheca, as represented by G. Bergiana, 
bears a very strong resemblance to Downingia, and was indeed for- 
merly included in it under Clintonia. The capsule is sessile, linear, 
triquetrous, and opens by longitudinal fissures as in Downingia, but 
has also the bivalvular dehiscence, and cleft corolla-tube of Lobelia. 
It has been reduced to Lobelia by Bentham and Hooker, and also 
by Baillon, but is again separated by Schonland in Planzenfamilien. 
In spite of the differences noted, Downingia is apparent!y more 
closely related to Grammatotheca than to any other of the lobeliace- 
ous types. . 
Downingia has lately suffered from a notable inflation of its spe- 
cies. For along time the genus was supposed to consist of only 
three—the Chilian D. pusilla, our D. elegans, to which Clintonia 
corymbosa DC. has usually been referred, and D. pulchella. To 
these species Dr. Gray added a fourth, under the name of D. bicor- 
muta, chiefly distinguished by elevated conical processes in the 
throat, and Professor Greene has since become responsible for five 
more —D. concolor, D. insignis, D, montana, D. ornatissima, and 
D. tricolor—wholly untenable species, founded upon the most trivial 
distinctions of form and markings of the extremely variable corolla. 
