102 Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 



slender bract tassels, and large smooth blackish berries externally resem- 

 bling those of patula and containing a solid or little-divided stone im- 

 bedded in thick pulp. Leaves 40-50 mm. in length, pale dull grayish 

 green, similar on both sides, lanceolate to elliptical, acute pointed (rarely 

 bluntly rounded), often mucronate; glabrous; ribbed and finely reticu- 

 late; midrib usually purplish and conspicious basally (often throughout), 

 petioles 6-8 mm. Bract tassels long (40-50 mm. when fully grown), 

 minutely scurfy-puberulent; bracts narrowly foliaceous, deciduous, the 

 lower about 8 mm., the others smaller, sometimes evenly graduated, 

 decreasing upward; mature bract scales small, carinate, recurved, usually 

 becoming awn-pointed. Pedicels with a slender elongate bract at base, 

 12-15 mm. long. Drupe, globular, large, smooth, dark mahogany brown 

 (appearing black at a little distance), umbilicate at point of attachment, 

 and with a marked pit at opposite pole ; pericarp thick ; nutlets either a 

 single stone or one large and two or three small segments, indistinctly 

 ribbed or rugose. Flowers unknown. 



Type No. 871392 U. S. Nat. Herbarium. Collected 3 miles above Colfax 

 on ridge between North Fork American River and Bear River, November 

 5, 1911, by C. Hart Merriam. 



Distribution and Associates. — Arctostaphylos mewukka is a characteristic 

 species of the lower part of the open Ponderosa pine forest belt (Transi- 

 tion zone) on the west flank of the Sierra, where it ranges from Yuba 

 River south at least to the canyon of the Merced, and probably beyond 

 these limits in both directions. In the northern part of its range it is 

 associated witii A. manzanita and A. viscida ; in the southern part with 

 A . mariposa. Among its other associates are mahala mats (Ceanothus 

 prostratus), kit-kit-diz'-za (Chamaebatia foliolosa), soft-leaf buckthorn 

 (Rhamnus tomentella) , and poison oak (Rhus diversiloba) . Its zone 

 position therefore is below that of its congener, the mountain green 

 manzanita (A. putula) and its associate the snow bush (Ceanothus 

 cordifolius). 



Specimens in the National Herbarium were collected by me in Tuo- 

 lumne County at Priest Hill in 1906, in ' The Basin ' on North Fork 

 Tuolumne River, and at Bald Rock, five miles north of Tuolumne, in 

 1907 ; in Mariposa County on the mountains bordering Merced Canyon 

 above El Portal in 1910; and in Placer County on the ridge between 

 North Fork American River and Bear River in 1911. On the latter slope 

 it ranges from three miles above Colfax up to Towle and Gorge stations 

 — perhaps even higher. 



The Mii-wa Indians of Yosemitecall this species Muk'-ko; A. mariposa 

 they call A'-yeh. 



Arctostaphyos nissenana sp. nov. 



(Plates IV and V) 



An erect shrub about \% meters high with reddish brown fibrous bark, 

 conspicuously different from the smoothly polished bark of most of the 

 manzanitas. Leaves greenish, rather small (20-25 mm. long), elliptic to 



