OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 287 



MALVASTRUM and SPHiERALCEA. When the first-named 

 genus was founded, no one sujDposed that in the princi})al North Ameri- 

 can species it came so very near to SphcEralcea. Certainly not Mr. 

 Bentham, who in the Genera Plantarum phiced it in the Eumalvece 

 subtribe. The difficulty in this respect soon became apparent, and 

 was alluded to by Mr, Watson in the Botany of King's Expedition, 

 p. 48, and later by Prof. Rothrock in the Botany of Wheeler's Explora- 

 tions. Although the two genera in question are essentially confluent 

 through certain species, they really ought not to be combined under 

 Sphceralcea, nor can they be distinguished, as was supposed, by the 

 number of ovules or seeds. The practical course, in my opinion, is to 

 retain in Malvastrum the species with cell of the carpels conformed to 

 the solitary ovule and seed, therefore with no empty terminal portion ; 



some soft slender hairs, or rarely glabrous ; carpels rougliish-rugose or favose- 

 reticulated and commonly pubescent, with ratlier rounded back and obtuse lat- 

 eral angles. This is partly 5. Oregana, PI. Fendl., and is Sida malvcujlora, Lindl. 

 Bot. Reg. t. 1036, and Hook. Fl. i. 108. It grows either in moist meadows, where 

 it is smooth, or on dry hills or plains, there more pubescent or hairy ; it is com- 

 mon in the northern (and perhaps also southern) parts of California, and in Ore- 

 gon and Washington Territory west of the Cascade Mountains. Some forms 

 too nearly approach the next. 



S. Oregana, Gray, PI. Fendl. I. c, partly. Generally more slender, but com- 

 monly tall, merely puberulent, or glabrous up to the simple or paniculate ra- 

 cemes, comparatively small-flowered, the canescent calyx only a third or half 

 inch long and with broadly deltoid lobes ; carpels obscurely rugulose-reticulated, 

 at least on the dorsal angles aiid sides, the back smooth or smoothish. It is 

 Slda Oregana, Nutt. in Torr. & Gray, Fl. Mainly of the dry interior region of 

 Oregon, Washington Territory, and Idaho, but as far west as Portland. 



S. GLAUOESCENS, Greene, 1. c, is smooth and glabrous up to and even through 

 the inflorescence, yet sometimes with obscure pubescence on the pale or light 

 green foliage; slender stems seldom over a foot or two high and leaves only an 

 inch or two wide ; racemes loose ; petals quarter to half an inch long, not rarely 

 white ; calyx from glabrous to cinereous-puberulent, the lobes attenuate or acu- 

 minate from a broad base; mature carpels relatively large and thin-walled, tur- 

 gid, glabrous, with the coarse dorsal reticulations mostly longer tlian broad, or 

 sometimes smooth and even. This is S. malvce/lora, Watson, Bot. King Exp. 

 46, in large part ; also some of E. Hall's no. 71 of Oregon distribution. It 

 abounds in the higher Sierra Nevada, extends east to Utah, and northward 

 apparently even to British Columbia. 



= = Mature carpels smooth and even, glabrous or nearly so: flowers mostly 

 small : calyx-lobes deltoid-ovate : hirsute pubescence not rare on stem and 

 petioles, and even on the calyx. 



S. Neo-Mexicana, Gray, PI. Fendl. 23. S. mah-fpflora, Gray, PI. Wright. 

 i. 20, mainly (excl. syn.) ; Greene, 1. c. Mountains of New Mexico, N. Arizona, 

 and Colorado ; also adjacent Mexico. 



