SHORT ARTICLES. 



69 



where it is quite a conspicuous feature of the plains. The 

 leaves are two to three inches in breadth and a little less in 

 length, thick in texture and coarsely toothed, broadly and an- 

 gularly 5-lobed with cordate base; calyx broadly triangular, 

 broader than long, acute; bractlets short, comparatively 

 shorter than those of M. fasciculatum; corolla rose color, | 

 in. long; inflorescence a dense racemose panicle twelve to 

 twenty inches long; carpels tomentose above with a stellate 

 pubescence: leaves, twigs and young growth in general 

 covered with a dense white felty covering of stellate hairs. 

 The shrub flowers in June and July. Its tree-like aspect, its 

 broad thick leaves with dense tomentum, the broad calyx and 

 short bractlets, and the late period of flowering all combine 

 to make a valid species. 



M. Fremonti, Torr., of which an admirable description is 

 given in " Flora Franciscana," is not infrequent on the San 

 Gabriel Range above 4000 feet, and is the only species that 

 could possibly be confounded with M. splendidum, but 

 though sometimes over eight feet high, its habit is totally 

 different, the whole plant being but an aggregation of long 

 virgate branches. The leaves are thicker and the felt of 

 stellate hairs denser; the bractlets most easily distinguish 

 the two being long and setaceous in M Fremonti. 



SHORT ARTICLES. 



OsciLLATORiA TRAPEZOIDEA, Tilden: — In the last number of 

 the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club (page 58) Miss 

 Josephine E. Tilden of the University of Minnesota describes 

 a new Oscillatoria from California which she has named O. 

 trapezoidea. The species is said to resemble O. chalybea 

 Mertens, " but is larger, shows no spiral arrangement and is 

 clearly distinguished by the shape of the terminating cells of 

 the filament." 



