72 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



leaves little or no botanical or geographical territory to the 

 type species. If now, as seems likely, our eager botanists 

 persist in raising all varieties to specific rank, the original 

 species will be suppressed altogether, — a piece of piracy that 

 should make the shade of Bentham return to enter vigorous 

 protest. The different varieties have been often and fully 

 described; the species has not. This is due to the fact that 

 the original description was based on immature staminate 

 twigs from California. Before any complete material had 

 been obtained from that region the plant had been found in 

 New Mexico, two or more places in the Rocky Mts., the 

 Saskatchawan R., Eraser R., Vancouver Island, and along the 

 Columbia, — in short, throughout its entire range except the 

 type locality. Further, almost every new collection had 

 received a new name, specific or varietal. Mr. Bebb's Cali- 

 fornian material was scanty, and he was naturally influenced by 

 the extended descriptions of Nuttall and Andersson of extra- 

 Calif ornian forms and finally arranged them as varieties. But 

 both here and in his review of them ten years later he dis- 

 tinctly stated his inability to discern more than a single 

 species in all the forms. 



In any consideration of this species it must be borne in 

 mind that the leaves of flowering specimens are necessarily 

 young and that even fruiting specimens are rarely accompa- 

 nied by foliage that can be called mature. The leaves also 

 undergo considerable change in shape during development. 

 Nuttall, whose figures (of foliage) are very accurate, and 

 whose technical and popular descriptions taken together are 

 very complete, especially emphasized these facts and also 

 noted that the leaves are green on both sides for a consider- 

 able time. Bentham had the sagacity to see and the though t- 

 fulness to note that his two-inch leaves were " by no means 

 fully developed." Andersson, however, paid no attention to 

 the fact that the specimens of Hartweg, Bigelow (var. lasi- 

 andra), Fendler and Geyer {S. Fendleriana, S. argiita) 

 were all young, and continued to describe the leaves as 2-3 

 inches long. When he did see the mature glaucous leaves of 

 the Lyall and Bourgeau specimens he failed to connect them 

 with what he had already described, and founded S. lancifolia 



