288 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



and to refer to Sphceralcea those with solitary or occasionally two 

 ovules, which when the upper ovule is either abortive or wanting have 

 the upper part, usually the whole upper half, of the mature carpel 

 empty, and of a different texture from the lower part, being thin and 

 smooth, while the lower has rugose-reticulated sides. In these Pseudo- 

 Malvastrum species, some of them more commonly bi-ovulate, the 

 mature carpels fall away clean from the receptacle. In the true Sphce- 

 ralcecB they usually, after separation from the axis and dehiscence, 

 remain (as in some other genera) for some time attached by a thread 

 passing from the receptacle to the dorsal base of each carpel, which at 

 length tears away, sometimes from the receptacle, sometimes from the 

 back of the carpel. 



Our species of Malvastrum and of SphcBralcea are difficult, and have 

 been not a little confused. I understand them as presented below.t 



S. spiCATA, Greene,!, c. Differs from the preceding (perhaps not constantly) 

 in the dense and oblong or interrupted spike of flowers, their pedicels shorter 

 than the rather large calyx or hardly any. This is, as Professor Greene sup 

 posed, the Callirrhoe spicata of Kegel in his Gartenflora. We have seen it in the 

 gardens under the name of Sidalcea Murrayana, apparently an unpublislied name. 

 It occurs on both the eastern and we.stern sides of the Sierra Nevada, where it 

 was long ago collected by Anderson and by Torrey ; recently Prof. Henderson 

 found it in Grant Pass, on the borders of Oregon. 



* * Phalanges crowded at the summit of the column and indistinct, most of the 



stamens being separate, the outermost combined more or less at base in 



threes or fours : scapose : radical and subradical leaves all pedately dissected. 



S. PEDATA. A rather low species, with ascending scapes or scape-like stems 



and pedately 5-7-parted leaves rising from a tuberous-thickened root; petals 



(only 4 or 5 lines long) rose-purple; and carpels quite smooth and glabrous. 



— Bear Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains, S. California, collected by my 



valued correspondent, S. B. Parish. 



t MALVASTRUM, Gray. 



* Peduncles, at least the earlier ones, long and slender, one-flowered : calyx in- 



volucellate by .3 slender bracts : petals rose-color varying to white : carpels 

 orbicular, rugose, muticous : annuals, not canescent nor tomentose. Ari- 

 zono-Californian. 



M. ROTUNDiFOLiuM, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 333. 



M. EXILE, Gray, Bot. Ives Colorado Exp. 8, & Proc. 1. c. 



Of a different group, with pedunculate clusters at length evolute into unilat- 

 eral spikes, similar rugose carpels, and rose-purple petals, is M. Peruvianum, 

 Gray, in Bot. Wilkes Ex. Exped., a Mexican form of which, weak and strag- 

 gling, is M. jacens, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. xxi. 417. 



« * Peduncles or pedicels short or hardly any : petals yellow : pubescence 



appressed or dense, 



