546 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1895. 



ECLOG.E BOTANICJE, NO. 2. 



by edward l. greene. 



1. Some New Western Plants. 



Trifolium trunoatum. 



T. ampiecteus Greene, Pitt. I, 6, not of.Torr. and Gray. 

 T. stenophyllum Greene, Fl. Fr., 34, partly, not of Nutt. 

 T. Franciscanum var. irnncatum Greene. Man.. 100. 



Annual, 5 to 10 inches high, branching from the base, slender, 

 flaccid when young, the branches and peduncles wiry in age; herbage 

 vivid green and glabrous: lowest leaflets broadly cuneiform and 

 truncate, less than \ inch long, the upper larger and ampler, 1 inch 

 long, oblong-cuneiform or oblong-linear, truncate or obtuse, often re- 

 fuse, not manifestly venulose, sparingly toothed : very slender 

 peduncles exceeding the leaves : heads subglobose, about \ inch in 

 diameter when mature: corolla yellowish-white, tipped with dark 

 purple, the tube at length inflated to the broadly obpyramidal and 

 truncate, except as abruptly pointed by the withered remains of the 

 tips of the petals. 



This, one of the most common clovers of the middle California 

 inland districts, I was long unable to believe to be an unrecognized 

 species; and, as the bibliography shows, I have made repeated efforts 

 to reconcile it with one and another of the poorly described species 

 of Nuttall. Then, at last, in the Manual of Ray-Region Botany, I 

 made it a part — a named variety — of what I thought must be a new 

 species; but, within a few months from the time of publishing T. 

 Franciscanum, I was privileged to see, in the Herbarium of the 

 British Museum, the type specimen of Nuttall' s T. stenophyllum; 

 and I was surprised to discover, in that type, just what I had taken 

 as the type of my own T. Franciscanum. From that type, a common 

 species of the seaboard districts, the present plant is very distinct. 

 The name truncatum is adopted for the species in allusion to the very 

 broad and flat-topped bladdery-inflated corolla-tube, rather than to 

 the form of the leaflets, which, however, are very commonly truncate 

 also. 



