VOL. 5] New Spectes of Galium. 53 
and stems and make the mounds larger. The winter's rains and 
melting snow percolate through the mass and leach out the alka- 
line elements till very soon we find the mounds occupied by Savrco- 
batus, Kochia, and at length A/riplex confertifolia and species of 
Tetradymia, the Spirostachys having long ago died. Among an- 
nuals we also find Streptanthus longirostris as one of the first occu- 
pants of Spirostachys mounds. ‘The further away we get from the 
barren area the larger the Spirostachys mounds become till we are 
five to ten miles off. ‘Then the mounds are so thick and so many 
that it is difficult to drive through them. After that the Spiros- 
tachys is seldom seen, it having died out and been replaced by 
the species mentioned. From this point also the mounds decrease 
in size, as the new occupants of the mounds are not able to resist 
the wearing action of the wind. At length, we have a plain 
thickly covered with the usual desert shrubs and only slight ele- 
vations around them. ‘This is the process which Nature is now 
using to redeem the Great Salt Lake Desert, and it has completed 
about nine-tenths of its task. 
NEW SPECIES OF GALIUM AND NOTES ON A FEW OF 
THE CALIFORNIAN FORMS. 
G. TrxcrorrumM submontanum, Usually erect unless grow- 
ing in a moist situation; stem-angles more or less hispid; 
leaves four, five or six in the whorls, often shorter than in the 
type, margins and mid-rib often scabrous; flowers with a three 
or four-parted corolla; fruiting pedicels capillary, often longer 
than the leaves, not divaricate. 
Southern California, north to Oregon and Washington, east to 
Nevada: Northern Transcontinental Survey, T. S. Brandegee, 
1883; Reno, Nevada, Walter E. Bryant; M. K. Curran, Sept. 
1888; Yosemite Valley, Mrs. Dodd, 1891; Vicinity of San Ber- 
nardino, S. B. Parish, No. 4579; Bouldin Island, San Joaquin R., 
Mrs. Brandegee, July 9, 1893 (in part); Hast Lake, S. Fork 
King’s R., Alice Eastwood, July 8, 1899. 
This is apparently the most common form of the trifidum group 
in California. Its nearest ally is G. tinctorium diversifolium. 
