FLOERKEA PROSERPINACOIDES AND ALLIES 405 



serpinacoides of varietal rank. Some authors consider it as identical 

 with F. proserpinacoides (12) (13). 



Floerkea occidentalis is reported from Yellowstone Park, Utah, and 

 Washington, ascending to an altitude of 2,000 to 2,500 m. (16); Wyoming, 

 Colorado to California and Washington (1). 



Those who consider F. occidentalis to be synon\Tnous with F. pro- 

 serpinacoides record F. proserpinacoides from: — 



Washington, Ontario, south to California, Utah and Pennsylvania 

 (12); Canada, Oregon, south in the east to Pennsylvania and Illinois, 

 and in the west to California and Utah (5); Quebec to Ontario, Oregon, 

 Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Missouri to Utah, and California (13); Oregon, 

 California, Illinois, Canada and New England (2). 



Those distinguishing F. proserpinacoides give its distribution as 

 follows: — 



In Washington, North Utah (18); Quebec to New Jersey, Tennessee, 

 Missouri, Wisconsin (1). 



From this it can be seen that F. occidentalis (F. proserpinacoides) 

 overlaps the distribution regions of the pentamerous forms of Limnanthes 

 and connects with the distributional area given for the tetramerous form 

 of Limnanthes (L. Macounii). Thus, these two forms, if they are to be 

 so considered, F. occidentalis and F. proserpinacoides, have a distribution 

 ranging through California, Washington, Oregon, extending eastward 

 through southern Canada to Ontario, Quebec, into New England and 

 the middle Atlantic States to Pennsylvania. Here they reach, under 

 the name of Floerkea proserpinacoides, the distribution accepted by the 

 older authors for it in the East. 



The whole group seems to have originated as a pentamerous one which 

 still retains in L. Douglasii and L. rosea the attractive large flowers, 

 which, to quote a rather popular Western Flora, make the western 

 "meadows all a cream" in April. In its northern representatives a 

 tendency toward reduction in the size of the flowers and the number of 

 parts appears in the tetramerous species, Limnanthes Macounii. Over- 

 lapping the distribution of this tetramerous form is that of the trimerous 

 one, Floerkea occidentalis, a condensed form which is by Piper and others 

 regarded merely as a reduced type of Floerka proserpinacoides. This 

 then stretches across the continent from California to Oregon thence to 

 the Lakes, where a spur of distribution perhaps passed down tributaries 

 of the Mississippi to Missouri, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee. In making 

 its way from Canada down through Quebec, Ontario, New England to 

 Pennsylvania, the distributional lines may have been along the foothills 



