^3 8 Short Articles. [ ZOE 



Vhrrascum in California. The Great or Woolly Mullein 

 V.Thapsus L. noted in Bot. Cal, ii, 472 as having been found in 

 Siskiyou County by Mr. Greene has been known to me since 

 1854- It was then sufficiently common in fields of Sacramento 

 County near the prosperous mining town of Prairie City of 

 which no vestige now remains. In the year 1859, it covered a 

 tract several hundred feet in length along the American river 

 between the town of Folsom and the place where the Branch 

 State Prison now stands. 



V. virgatum With. I saw first near Pasadena in the year 

 1885, but I had observed V. Blattaria I,, not far from Stockton 

 m 1876. These two plants are usually considered doubtfully 

 distinct. In their extreme forms they appear sufficiently so, 

 though the only real difference appears to be in the pedicels 

 which are shorter than the calyx and clustered in V. virgatum 

 longer and usually solitary in V. Blattaria. The forms found in 

 northern California frequently have the appearance of intergrades. 

 1 he first and the last species most probably came to us by way of 

 the eastern states, where they are weeds, but V. virgatum seems to 

 have come to us direct from Europe. Dr. Gray in the Synopti- 

 cal Flora suggests that it came by the way of Mexico but the 

 plant is not certainly Mexican unless, as is often the case it is 

 included in V. Blattaria. Z ' * 



The Size of Herbarium Sheets. In a large and growing 

 herbarium the item of paper upon which the specimens are to be 

 mounted ,s of considerable consequence, but of more importance 

 still is the space to be occupied and the size of the shelving 

 Herbaria which have already accumulated a large number of 

 mounted specimens of a certain size are never likely to change 

 bu 111 the new ones which are formed from time to time it is 

 well to consider whether the saving in expense and space and 

 convenience in handling, does not outweigh any possibk advan- 

 ce in conforming to a "standard" which as is well known was 

 the result of a blunder. Dr. Gray in the American Journal of 

 Science for 1841 makes note of the size of sheets in the great 

 herbaria of Europe. The magnificent Banksian Herbarium 

 which is apparently the one he selected as a model is l6 #X 



