228 Nelson : New Plants from Wyoming 



erally in pairs but not rarely alternate, spatulately oblanceolate or 

 broader, tapering gradually into the broad margined petiole which 

 becomes gradually shorter upward and absent in the uppermost : 

 inflorescence very strict: peduncles erect, axillary to the bracts 

 and uppermost leaves, I— 3-flowered : flowers 5-merous : sepals 

 subulate-lanceolate, delicately nerved, about half as long as the 

 petals : corolla lobes dark blue shading to purple, oblong, obtuse, 

 about 10 mm. long, 3-4 mm. broad : glands orbicular, the append- 

 ages few (10 or less), short subulate: seeds seemingly lenticular 

 (those at hand immature), wing-margined. 



It often happens, once attention is called to it, that some spe- 

 cies that has remained a long time generally accepted and undis- 

 turbed is found to be a very nicely separable aggregate. Dr. 

 Greene and others have repeatedly made this clear. As sobn as 

 segregation has begun other workers must of necessity investigate 

 their own material and at the same time it stimulates the field 

 work in that particular group. This nearly always leads to the 

 definition of yet other species. Evidently this experience is to be 

 repeated in the case of Szvertia. The old world 5. perennis is 

 wholly unknown to me but, with the characters which Dr. Greene 

 assigns to it * it is no longer possible to refer any of our forms to 

 that. In fact to do so would be to reject the work already done. 

 But if we accept the characters, upon which Dr. Greene's species f 

 are founded, as specific, it is equally impossible to include some 

 other Rocky Mountain forms in them. 5. palustris is nearest to 

 S. scopnlina but differs from it in its leafy stems, more numerous 

 5-merous flowers, shorter sepals and apparently very different 

 seeds. 



The species now proposed is abundant in shaded subalpine 

 bogs of southern Wyoming. I cite no. 7774, Nash's Fork, July 

 30, 1900, as type. 



/Swertia congesta 



Commonly less than 2 dm. high : leaves alternate, rarely more 

 than 3 or 4, usually on the basal half of the stem (the upper half 

 somewhat scapiform), from elliptic to oblanceolate, obtuse or sub- 

 acute, 3-6 cm. long, sessile or on short margined clasping petioles : 

 inflorescence congested, usually subtended by a pair of foliar 

 bracts : flowers 5-merous, 3-7, dark bluish-purple : sepals as in 



* Pittonia 4 : 184 

 f Pittonia /. c. 



