116 Morris: North American Plantaginaceae 



vince at once that the geographical distribution and the climatic 

 conditions characteristic of such ranges are in importance second- 

 ary only to the anatomical characters and habits, if not the direct 

 cause of them. These apparently had no "consideration in the 

 older writings on this family inside of continental distribution. I 

 am fully convinced that sufficient study of the habitats and range 

 of these and other species of the Plantaginaceae will be of the 

 utmost value in further verification and recognition of the true 

 relationships within the family. It is a matter of personal regret 



that I have not been able to study these important points in the 

 field. 



Several correspondents have suggested that the collectors' 

 numbers and dates would have made the first paper more useful. 

 I believe worse confusion was avoided by the omission of such 

 numbers and dates, for as many as a dozen collectors have dis- 

 tributed from two to four species of Plantago under a single number 

 and date, sometimes even broad- and narrow-bracted species 

 together. To illustrate : The only specimens of R. A. Plaskett's 

 no. 55, from the Santa Lucia Mountains, available to me were un- 

 doubtedly separable from the other California material at hand. 

 Miss Alice Eastwood wrote that her material distributed as Plas- 

 kett's no. 55 could not be P. teirantha by any freedom of inter- 

 pretation. To prove her statement she sent on her specimens. These 

 were undoubtedly P. erecta, there not being a single plant of P. 



teirantha, 



I am greatly indebted to all who have so kindly loaned me their 

 specimens or allowed me the facilities at their hands, and for the 

 specimens presented to me. Definite acknowledgement is made in 

 the record of the place of deposit of these specimens. And more 

 especially am I under obligation to Mr. C DeCandolle for his 

 courtesy in presenting me with the photograph mentioned above. 



Plantago spixulosa Dene. ; DC. Prod. 13: 713. 1852 



P. Patagonica var. spinulosa Gray, Man. ed. 2 : 269. 1856. 



A light or bright green annual, with a short simple stem, with 

 white to fuscous pubescence: leaves crowded, somewhat lax, 

 ascending to erect, few to numerous, linear to spatulate-linear, 

 commonly induplicate, acuminate at the apex, callous-tipped, en- 

 tire, narrowed to the margined semi-clasping petiole, j-rifibed, even 



