146 The Ottawa Naturalist - . [Jan. 



of that whole domain of inland Alaska. The following plants 

 of Mr. Cairnes appear to be new; the first, a rather remarkable 

 generic type belonging to the family of the crucifers. 



MELANIDION. 



Low perennial herb, with stout subereet branches race- 

 mosely floriferous throughout and subsecund. Sepals equal, 

 narrowly oval, persistent even under the mature fruit. Stamens, 

 six; subequal; filaments slightly flattened; anthers oval. Petals 

 equal, the limb cuneate-obovate, obtuse, tapering to a short 

 claw, the color, purple. Style manifest and stout ; stigma 

 capitate. Silicle firmly coriaceous, subcompressed, suborbicular, 

 the body strongly double-convex, but the valves meeting by 

 flattened margins forming a thick wing-like elevation all around, 

 and dehiscent through this wing or ridge; the whole one-celled, 

 the partition obsolete. Seeds, 1 to 4, oval or round-obovate, 

 not much flattened; cotyledons accumbent. 



Melanidion Boreale. Leaves unknown, as also the root 

 and the absolutely basal part of the plant. The branches, the 

 rather long pedicels of the fruits, and the middle of each sepal are 

 all whitened by a villous pubescence. The calyx is wholly of 

 a very dark purple, yet quite herbaceous as to texture. The 

 specimen is very mature, only a few of the corollas remaining 

 at the summits of two of the racemose branches. Most of the 

 silicles had shed their seeds. The valves are straw-colored, also 

 reticulate-veiny both without and within. The type is of so 

 strange appearance and. character that I am unable to name 

 any genus to which I should say that it is nearly allied. 



The locality, as given by Mr. Cairnes, is "North of Runt 

 Creek, Long. 141, Lat. 66 18', the altitude 2,300 feet." 



Anemone Cairnesiana. Leaves at time of flowering, 

 small ; barely half-inch long and not much broader, ternately 

 cut into many oblong acutish lobes and glabrous, but the 

 petioles loosely villous; scapes stoutish, only two or three inches 

 high, leafless, but with a conspicuous involucre of three leaves 

 at about the middle, each divided into about three narrowly 

 oblong or oblong -linear segments, each somewhat callous at 

 tip, all glabrous above, beneath clothed loosely with long, 

 somewhat appressed silky hairs ; peduncle of the solitary flower 

 whitened with a villous woolliness at and near the summit ; 

 perianth very large for the plant, measuring 1^ to If- inches 

 across in expansion, the sepals oblong, seven or eight in number, 

 and of a deep slightly purplish blue; filaments still more deeply 

 purple, the anthers elliptical and blackish; styles in the flower 

 rather prominent, pubescent; fruit unknown. 



