3 
Island in 1875, and even Parry's No. 11 of his Wyoming expedi- 
tion, may belong here, but are not in fruit. Yet they may have 
broader akenes and oval seeds, which would identify them 
with Greene’s JZ. minimus var. filiformis, of which, as I have 
said, more mature specimens are much wanted. The very 
depauperate specimens from Antioch, Cal., are certainly of this 
variety of MW. apetalus. Suksdorf’s No. 492, Coll. 1885, from 
the Columbia River, is quite intermediate between undoubted 
M. apetalus and this var. lepturus. 
M. SESSILIS, Watson, (Proc. Am. Acad., xvii., 363), with 
carpel-spikes even at maturity perfectly sessile at the root, oval 
akenes, with acutely carinate back continued into a beak, and 
short oval seeds, must be a good species, known as yet only 
in Howell’s specimens (No. 383 of 1882), from alkaline flats of 
N. E. Oregon. 
M. CUPULATUS, Watson, |. c., is most distinct. Its small 
akenes thicken on the sides and round the back with a corky or 
coriaceous growth of whitish color, the upper edge of which forms 
a rim or shallow cup around the base of the green and gladiate- 
subulate beak; the proper cell is small, thin-walled, and filled 
by the oval seed. 
M. ALOPECUROIDES, Greene (in Bull. Calif. Acad., i, 278), 
the latest-published species, appears to be a good one; but more 
mature fruit is desirable. It comes between JZ. apfetalus and M. 
cupulatus, yet with the general shape of the akenes more like 
that of M. minimus. It is characterized by the development of 
a soft-cellular border around the oblong back of the akene, which 
thus becomes concave, and the conspicuous beak is laterally 
flattened, as in JZ. cupulatus, but is narrower. The short spur of 
the sepals may not be trusted, for this is nearly wanting in some 
flowers of WW. apetalus. 
The fruit of Myosurus is said to be an akene; it might as well 
be called an utricle, or even a follicle. For in all the species, 
though least in JZ. minimus, the ventral portion or proper body 
of the mature carpel is soft-cellular or thin, and more or less 
_ scarious, and the ventral suture very commonly dehisces when 
the carpels fall from the receptacle. 
