22 Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
On the Pacific coast of North America, from British Columbia to 
California, Cakile edentula is represented by the plant proposed by 
Heller as C. californica'. This is somewhat stouter and taller and 
with more ascending branches than the plant of the Atlantic coast, 
but its fruits are in form essentially identical with those of many 
eastern specimens. Greene, who was not disinclined to recognize 
new species, could not separate the Californian material from C. 
edentula, although he was surprised to discover that the two are 
conspecific, for “from the analogies of plant distribution in America 
where Old World genera are concerned, we should have expected the. 
other species, C. maritima of Europe, to recur on the Pacific coast, 
rather than that the Atlantic American species should have found 
place here."? Again, Millspaugh, in monographing the genus, was 
unable to separate the Californiana plant and treated it as “intro- 
duced." Heller had examined one collection of the eastern plant 
and from it drew the conclusion, “that the fruit is smaller and more 
elongated than ours [the Californian]|"; but had he seen but one 
collection of the Pacific coast plant and an adequate series from the 
Atlantic coast he could have reversed this decision. 
In one fundamental character alone do the plants of the Great 
Lakes and of the Pacific coast differ from those of the Atlantic shores. 
In the latter the articulating surfaces of the two joints, although 
varying in the degree of convexity or concavity, are essentially 
smooth. All mature fruits from the Great Lakes and the Pacific, on 
the other hand, show a striking departure. The articulating surface 
of the lower joint bears two elongate and four shorter subulate pro- 
cesses which form two correspondingly deep and four shallow pits in 
the articulating surface of the upper joint. This character is seen in 
all Great Lake specimens examined, both in the extreme plant with 
lacerate or deeply lobed leaves and slender long-beaked siliques and 
in the plant with merely dentate leaves and ovoid short-beaked 
terminal joints to the silique. On the Atlantic coast very exceptional 
individuals show a slight development of the processes and pits and 
others, equally exceptional, have slender siliques. 
1 Heller, Muhlenbergia, iii. 10 (1907). 
? Greene, Fl. Francisc. 277 (1891). 
