New Plants from Wyoming— XII 



By A yen Nelson 



I. THE C0RM08E-R00TED ROCKY MOUNTAIN CLAYTONIAS 



The cormose -rooted species of Claytonia are certainly still in 

 confusion ; especially is this true of the forms that at various 

 times have been called C. lanceolata Pursh ; under this name and 

 its supposed synonyms there seems to be more than one species. 

 To clear up some of the difficulties, if possible, is the object of this 

 discussion. 



To begin with, the first factor of simplification is found in lo- 

 cating the C. lanceolata of Pursh. That Pursh' s description as 

 well as his figure was, through some error, drawn from two or 

 more species, was first suggested by Torrey and Gray in Fl. N. A. 

 1 : 1 99. No specimens are in existence which have the combina- 

 tion of characters assigned by Pursh in his description and indi- 

 cated in his figure. This led Dr. Torrey in Pac. R. Rep. 4 : 70, 

 to speak of it as a " fictitious species" and to assign (to the same 

 plant as he supposed) the name of C. Caroliniana sessilifolia. On 

 the other hand, the characters that Dr. Torrey assigns to the 

 plant from which he drew his description, and of which there are 

 many recent collections, make it necessary to separate them, at 

 least varietally, from the C. lanceolata of Hooker, Fl. Bor. Am. I : 

 224 ; T. & G. FL N. A. 1 c, and Syn. Fl. 1 : 271. 



Since the name C. lanceolata Pursh must be retained it will 

 have to apply to the plant of that name of Hooker, of Torrey and 

 Gray and of the Syn. Fl. To make the distinctions between the 

 species and the variety evident, descriptions of both are added. 



Claytonia lanceolata Pursh 



One dm. or more in height ; root leaves rare (usually wanting) 

 never more than one even when there are two or three stems as 

 occasionally happens, the slender petiole 2-3 times as long as the 

 oblong-lanceolate blade : stem leaves sessile, oblong-lanceolate to 

 elliptic or even broader (venation much the same in all the species 

 in the group), 2-3 cm. long : inflorescence few-several -flowered, 

 appearing sessile between the paired leaves which nearly equal or 



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