ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



91 



color cinnamon brown, inside of the valves silvery satiny; seeds about half 

 the size of common pea, verditer-greenish hue; allied to L. polymorphus. A 

 climbing vine, six to ten feet creeping over bushes, and, with its numerous 

 branches and wealth of brilliantly gay scarlet-purple flowers, seen at a dis- 

 tance presents the illusion of a grand flowering shrub, naturally suggesting it 

 as an appropriate accessory for such a purpose in ornamental and rural 

 adornment. 



Some specimens have altogether filiform or linear leaves, and filciforrn sub- 

 ulate entire stipules; some with brighter scarlet flowers, and others purple 

 tints abound; but they are not deemed sufficiently uniform and distinct to 

 entitle them to varieties. Specimens presented by J. M. Hutchings, Esq., 

 from southern California. 



Dr. Kellogg exhibited specimens and made some observations on a variety 

 of Collomia leptalm, Gray, from Yosemite Valley. The specimens were far 

 more delicate than the original type, in every respect, even like the finest 

 sewing-thread; the most peculiar feature being the disposition to twine, as oc- 

 casion offers, around contiguous weeds for support. The plants, four to five 

 inches high, have flowers of similar form and relative relations, but sky blue 

 instead of pink; anthers spheroidal; capsule three-seeded — seeds elliptic, 

 somewhat prismatic, subglabrous, or a little rugose, and appendiculate; the 

 whole plant stipilate-glandular, lower leaves opposite (one to two or more 

 pairs) filiform. As we have but two specimens, we reserve a thorough an- 

 alysis rather than destroy them. Its provisional distinction might well be 

 jiliformis. 



Mr. F. P. McLean, our promising botanical friend— late of the California 

 University, now Johns S. Hopkins University, Baltimore — on the eve of his de- 

 parture placed in our hands a specimen of Psoralea, ticketed "Streams of 

 Tamelpais, 1873," which appears to be new. 



Psoralea fruticosa. K. t 



A low-spreading sub-shrub, more or less canescent-pubescent, with shortish 

 white soft hair throughout; leaves digitately-trifoliate, slender petioles very 

 short (1-2 lines long), appressed; stipules subulate, strongly nerved (3-4 

 lines long; leaflets cuneate, oblong-obovate, recurve-apiculate, mucronate (% 

 to %-inch long, 2-3 lines broad); terminal compound spikes sessile, 2-3 

 inches long; the branches (mostly simple) 1-2 inches long; flowers densely 

 crowded (50-100 or more), very small (2-3 lines), indigo blue, subsessile, 

 or pedicels barely %-line; persistent bracts narrowly lanceolate-acuminate 

 about as long as the flowers; calyx teeth ovate-acute, lower tooth about one- 

 third longer, acuminate, banner sub-obcordate cuneate into the claw, wings 

 about equal, keel shorter; legume glabrous, ovate-oblong, acute, wrinkled and 

 roughened. Allied to P. floribunda and obtusioloba, but readily distinguished 

 by denser branches, foliage and flowers, branching spikes, the full-sized 

 leaves intermixed with the flowers of the base of the spikes, and also crowd- 

 ing them; longer and whiter pubescence, and very much shorter petioles and 

 pedicels, and relatively far longer stipules, and bracts; also, difference of 



