SOME CALIFORNIA PLANTS. 



J. W. CONGDON. 



(Mariposa, Cal.) 



ECHINOCYSTIS IN CALIFORNIA. 



The California species of Echinocystis have long been 

 recognized as unusually difficult to distinguish. This arises 

 from the fact that the plants are very much alike m flowers, 

 foliage and habit. They bloom in the early spring abundantly, 

 but the fruit is often very scarce and scanty. It is frequently 

 very difficult to identify the barren or scantily fruiting plants m 

 June with the forms that furnished the blossoms. This is 

 especially true where two or more species grow m the same 

 neighborhood. 



Having been enabled during the last and present seasons to 

 obtain for the first time really satisfactory materials, I trust 

 readers may derive benefit from my observations. 



As a means of classifying our species, I recognize the value of 

 Professor Greene's test of the shape of the corolla which so far 

 as I know holds good throughout. . 



I should, therefore, arrange and distinguish the Cahfornu, 

 species known to me as follows: 



Corollas Rotate. 



E FABACKA Naud. Climbing over low trees or bushes, or trail- 

 in. " Sterile flowers in small, scarcely branching racemes, green- 

 sh white. Fruit globose or ovoid, i to 2 inches in diameter, 

 usually two-celled and about 4 seeded. Seeds obovoid, some- 

 what compressed. 



Var. agrestis trails on the ground, is much smaller and has 

 ' smaller, scarcely prickly fruit. 



This species with its variety is common along the whole coast 

 of California, and extends into the interior as far as the foothills. 



E macrocarpa, Greene; seems to differ from the last, prin- 

 cipally in the much larger fruit and the more numerous and 

 differently shaped seeds. It belongs to the southern coast. 



