63 



BOSCHNIAKIA STROBILACEA, GRAY. 

 By Willis L. Jepson. 



The Genus Boschniakia is thought to contain four species. The 

 type of the genus is B. glabra, C. A. Meyer, which is found in 

 Siberia, Japan, and from the Aleutian Islands east to Slave Lake in 

 British America. The second species to be published was B. Hook- 

 eri, Walp., which was obtained on the Northwest Coast by Menzies, 

 and has not been collected since his day. The third in chronological 

 order is B. strobliacea, of the Pacific Coast, The fourth is B. hivia- 

 laica, Hook, and Thorns., of the Himalayan Region. 



Boschniakia drohilacea was first collected by Dr. J. M. Bigelow, 

 of Whipple's expedition of the Pacific Railroad Survey, on dry and 

 rocky hills of the South Yuba River, California, in May, 1854, and 

 received its technical description from Dr. Gray in the "Pacific Rail- 

 road Report," iv, 118 (1857). To this original description little 

 was added in the "Botany of California," i, 585 (1876), but a much 

 fuller account appeared in Gray's "Synoptical Flora," ii, 313, 455 

 (1878), and in the "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences," XXII, 312 (1887). In the place last cited Dr. Gray 

 ofiers the opinion that B. Hookeri and B. strobilacea may be the 

 same species. To the above literature is to be added a reference to 

 a note by Mrs. T. S. Brandegee in Zoe, ii, 78 (1891), accompanied 

 by a photographic reproduction of a "tuber" bearing young spikes 

 which had not appeared above the surface of the ground. 



The species is now known to have a wide distribution north and 

 south on the Pacific Coast, although, considering the period of time 

 that has elapsed since the days of Bigelow, it has been rarely col- 

 lected and in few or single specimens. Brewer, of the California 

 Geological Survey, made the second collection in the Santa Lucia 

 Mountains (No. 470, 1861), The southernmost station is the San 

 Bernardino Mountains, Lemmon, 1876; the northernmost, Mt. Finlay- 

 son, near Victoria, British Columbia, Macoun, 1885. Other locali- 

 ties from which I have seen specimens, are: Santa Cruz Mountains, 

 Anderson; Redwood Canon, Oakland hills, Contra Costa County, 

 Blasdale &Davy, 1897; Mt. St. Helena, Jepson, 1893; Areata, Hum- 



Erythea, Vol. V, No. 5 [31 May, 1897]. 



