OPEN LETTERS. 123 



of course, of the Flammula group. The specimens are only 

 from three to six inches high, the stem not twice (the length 

 of the quite copious tuft of radical leaves, the plant on the 

 whole remarkably pubescent for one of this group, only the 

 rare R. Lemmoni surpassing it in this regard. 



Thalictrum cainpestre. Stem solitary, slender, leafy, 10 

 to 18 inches high: herbage glabrous, glaudless, neither aro- 

 matic nor heavy-scented: leaves small, firm in texture, caul- 

 ine short-petiolate; leaiiets i to ^ inch broad, glaucous 

 beneath, mostly with 3 rounded and emarginate lobes: 

 panicle thyrsoidly contracted and small, many-flowered : sepals 

 4, round-ovate, obtuse, 3 to 5 nerved: filaments abruptly 

 clavate under the anther; anthers mucronate, sparsely pilose 

 with spreading or retrorse hairs: stigma subulate, from a 

 somewhat sagittate base: achenes small, sessile, ovate-oblong, 

 scarcely compressed, only 1^ lines long exclusive of the 

 straight beak, the angles or ribs about 5, the alternate ones 

 less prominent. 



Common on low prairies near Oarberry, Manitoba, where 

 it was collected by the writer in 1890. Stem always solitary 

 and erect, though lateral upon the crown of the root, and 

 curving upwards underground. The incipient stem for the 

 succeeding year was two inches long, and projected horizon- 

 tally beneath the surface, at the time of gathering the fruit- 

 ing specimens in early August. 



OPEN LETTEKS. 

 Phacelia Cooperae. 



This very pretty Phacelia was sent by its discoverer, Mrs. 

 Ellwood Cooper of Santa Barbara, to Dr. Gray^ and by him 

 named in her honor and reported upon in Proc. Am. Acad., 

 XV., 49. Subsequently in the supplement to Vol. II., Part 

 1, of his Synoptical Flora, issued January 1, 1886, Dr. Gray 

 on p. 418 reduced P. Cooperae as a synonym of P. gymno- 

 clada, Torr., for the reason that " only a single specimen is 



