OPEN LETTERS. 93 



our Pacific Coast specimens of Scirpus maritimus L. Syme states 

 that the achenes are compressed-trigonous when there are three 

 stigmas, and plano-convex when there are but two. — J. Burtt 

 Davy. 



Pvrola minor L. in California. — In July, 1897, Miss Kath- 

 erine E. Wilson collected this near East Lake in the high moun- 

 tains of the Kings-River country. This species has not before been 

 recorded from California but it is not new to the Pacific Coast, being 

 not uncommon from Oregon northward. — Alice Eastwood. 



Parasitism of Orthocarpus pusillus Benth. — This plant, 

 met with all the way from San Francisco and Oakland to Oregon, 

 I have recently discovered to be parasitic on the roots of certain 

 annual grasses and Erodium cicutarium. It probably has other 

 hosts, also, and as of interest on this point a letter from a corre- 

 spondent here follows. — J. Burtt Davy. 



You will find inclosed a branch of a weed [Orthocarpus pusillus 

 Benth.] which has lately made its appearance in our valley lands, 

 and it seems to take possession, and wherever it comes, the grass dis- 

 appears; but still it does not seem to grow thick enough to choke out 

 the grass. . . . Many of our fields that have always been very 

 productive of clover and also rye-grass, are being covered with this, 

 and at a distance it looks like moss; it comes on fields, that have 

 been newly seeded as well as old pastures. — C. E. Spear. 



Waddington, Humboldt County, Cal. 

 April, 1898. 



OPEN LETTERS. 



Bolander's Bladder Nut in Hadera County, Sierra 



Nevada. 



Fruiting specimens of Staphylea Bolanderi have recently been 

 sent to the University of California Herbarium from Madera 

 County. The recorded localities are few and the shrub is apparently 

 a rare one. The following notes concerning the locality whence the 

 specimens came are copied from the letter of the collector. 



