bo ERYTHEA. 



ovate, obtusish, with prominent white midvein and transverse 

 veins ; campanulate involucre 5-toothed, the teeth triangular: 

 flowers apparently solitary in the involucres, red-purple: 

 fruit globose, dark olive-green marked by 10 whitish longi- 

 tudinal striae, smooth, but under a lens faintly rugulose 

 transversely between the striae. 



The plant is herbaceous throughout, while M. Californica 

 is suffrutescent, as well as nearly glabrous, and with ovate 

 smooth and glabrous fruits. 



MALVASTRUM SPLENDIDUM, KELLOGG. 



By Dr. A. Davidson. 



In the Botany of California Brewer and Watson have 

 accorded Kellogg's Malvastrum splendidum specific rank, 

 but Gray in his revision considered it as synonymous with 

 M. fasciculaUim, Greene, and Prof. Greene in " Flora Fran- 

 ciscana" has followed suit. 



M. fasciculahim, Greene, is,- in the region of Los Angeles 

 the most abundant species of the genus and is one of the 

 commoner foothill- shrubs of the San Gabriel range, at least 

 as far east as Palm Springs on the Colorado Desert. This 

 shrub is quite variable in its inflorescence, but always retains 

 a shrubby base and wand-like branches. The inflorescence 

 is sometimes spike-like, the flowers being nearly sessile, at 

 other times it is a widely expanded raceme, but the species 

 is always recognisable as 31. fasciculatum by its general 

 habit. There is however a form frequently met with on the 

 Colorado Desert with broadly rounded leaves and with a 

 hoary, racemose inflorescence that seems deserving of at 

 least varietal distinction. 



M. splendidum is an arborescent shrub or small tree six to 

 fifteen feet in height with slender branches, found growing in 

 the sand-washes and sandy plains of San Fernando Valley, 



