171 



NEW AND NOTEWORTHY NORTHWESTERN 

 PLANTS.— III. 



By C. V. Piper. 



Spiraea cinerascens. Densely cespitose, the caudex and 

 branches stout; leaves rosulate, spatulate-oblanceolate, entire, ob- 

 tuse or acutish, 3-nerved, thick and leathery, cinereous, pilose 

 especially on the margin and narrowed base, 1-2.5 cm. long includ- 

 ing the petiole, whose dilated base is strigose with white hairs and 

 more or less persistent on the shoots; inflorescence racemose or 

 paniculate; flowering shoots erect, 6-15 cm. high, cinereous- 

 pubescent, with few or rather many acute lanceolate bracts, 5-10 

 mm. long; pedicels short, 1-4 mm. long; flowers 3 mm. long; 

 calyx-lobes 5, narrowly triangular, acute, 3-nerved, much exceed- 

 ing the tube, erect and not becoming reflexed ; petals 5, narrowly 

 oblong or slightly obovate, obtuse, white, 5-nerved, hardly exceeding 

 the calyx lobes, quite persistent ; stamens 15-25, attached to a 

 disk at the base of the calyx lobes; filaments subulate, slightly 

 longer than the petals; carpels 4-7, oblong, sparsely pilose, each 

 tipped with a slender outwardly-bent style, which exceeds it in 

 length; ovules commonly 2; seed 1, lanceolate, acute at each 

 end, the coat becoming mucilaginous when wetted, 2 mm. long; 

 embryo straight. 



Collected by A. D. E. Elmer, No. 853, on bluff's of the Columbia 

 River, Wash., 12 miles south of Chelan, in crevices of basaltic rock. 



Nearest to S. Hendersoni (Eriogynia Hendersoni Canby),(from 

 which it is readily distinguished by its acute calyx lobes, much 

 smaller petals, and peculiar pubescence. From S. ccespitosa Nutt. 

 it is at once separated by its 3-nerved leaves and very different 

 pubescence. In developing mucilage from the seed-coat the new 

 species is unique. 



The species here described would fall into the genus Eriogynia, as 

 delimited by Dr. W^atson, but there is nothing to distinguish his 

 Eriogynia fron Spiraea, except the cespitose habit of the former. 

 Kuntze, followed by Greene, accepts the genus in the Watsonian 



