PHACELIA FAMILY 245 



Mountain slopes, 100 to 8000 feet : Chile and Patagonia. Represented in North 

 America only by varietal forms, those for California listed below. 



Geog. note. — The binomial Pliacelia cireinata Jacq., the old-time name for this group of 

 plants, rests initially upon Patagonian and Chilean specimens. The name was first extended to 

 cover plants of western North America by Bentham (Trans. Linn. Soc. 17:279,- — 1837) who cited 

 Phacelia heterophylla Pursh and P. californica Cham, as synonyms, but no argument was made as 

 to the identity of the North American and South American forms. Nor did Asa Gray debate the 

 matter; he accepts the name Phacelia cireinata for North American plants (Proc. Am. Acad. 

 10:317,-1875) and in the Synoptical Flora (2:159,-1878) definitely makes it do duty from 

 British Columbia to the Straits of Magellan. Purely as a matter of nomenclatorial mechanics, 

 F. V. CovUle substituted the name Phacelia magellanica Gov. for P. cireinata, without touching 

 the species concerned or the problems involved in the relationships, special morphology and geo- 

 graphic distribution of the group. A. Brand, in his monograph of the family (1913), uses the 

 name Phacelia magellanica for both South American and North American plants and is the first 

 to indicate adequately the great variety of forms in each geographic group, but he does not argue 

 the specific identity of these plants of the northern and southern hemispheres. 



Only a limited number of collections of Phacelia magellanica from Patagonia, Chile and 

 Argentina are here available for study in connection with the work on Phacelias of this group in 

 western North America. In habit and aspect the majority of these South American specimens 

 would pass as Calif ornian plants; they likewise display parallel variations. There are no obser- 

 vable differences between the racemes and flowers of Patagonian plants and North American 

 plants or none that are constant. 



In western America and especially in California a large number of forms of this group occur 

 that by most authors of monographic revisions or monographic floras have been regarded as most 

 suitably disposed as one species, though the binomial used has varied. In such massing of all 

 these forms, the result is a broad species complex, here indicated as Phacelia magellanica, entirely 

 different in content from practically all other species units in Phacelia. In western North America 

 this complex covers a wide geographic area in whicli the forms or varieties composing it are, to 

 a partial degree, segregated geograpliically. In California var. californica is of the central coast 

 line. Var. calycosa (P. imbricata Greene), the most abundant and mdespread form, occurs 

 throughout the entire foothill area of cismontane California and is markedly variable. Towards 

 the coast it blends with var. californica ; in certain areas it passes indistinguishably into var. 

 heterophylla (P. virgata Greene) which is of the North Coast Ranges inside the Redwood belt; at 

 higher levels it passes into var. griseophylla. Var. griseophylla is characteristic of the Transition 

 and Canadian zones in the Sierra Nevada ; its stems are typically slender with long internodes, its 

 leaves entire or sparingly pinnatifid and its racemes mostly few in a panicle ; but on the whole 

 it is eccentrically variable. It passes by intergrades into the var. frigida of the Hudsonian and 

 Arctic zones, which is rather well characterized by its low caespitose habit, its basal tuft of eutire 

 leaves, its reduced or capitate panicle. Of the complex in California these are the most important 

 and most outstanding forms geographically, although there are many others. If var. calijfornica 

 of the coast line be considered a convenient point for initiating comparisons, all the inland and 

 high montane varieties represent departures in habit, in aspect, in size, in leaf form (especially as 

 to a less or greater degree of lobation or incision) and in the number and arrangement of the 

 racemes — all of which features are, however, markedly unstable. Phacelia magellanica would 

 seem, in reality, an overloaded species, even as an admitted complex. The var. frigida in its ex- 

 treme form is a reduced alpine 2 to 4 inches high, growing chiefly at altitudes of 8000 to 12,000 

 feet. At 13,000 feet on Mt. Whitney it is found at a higher altitude than any other hydrophylla- 

 ceous plant in North America and is in marked contrast with var. californica at sea-level on the 

 coast line or the robust var. calycosa of the foothills. Var. frigida, then, with vars. californica, 

 griseophylla and calycosa and the extremely unlike var. heterophylla with several other named 

 varieties, are thus massed under one species designation, Phacelia magellanica, which seems out 

 of keeping with usual species treatment. 



Under the direction of the author, Virginia Bailey has dissected series of collections repre- 

 senting the forms var. californica, var. calycosa, var. griseophylla, var. frigida (and its high alti- 

 tude strains vars. dasyphylla and pygmaea) and others. No essential differences are found 

 amongst the flowers of any of these forms. In all there is considerable inconstant or continuous 

 variation in the degree of hairiness of the filaments, the length of the filaments, the relative length 

 of the style branches, the pubescence of the corollas both inside and out, and the relative length, 

 shape and pubescence of the calyx-lobes. In all these varieties the corolla scales are essentially 

 alike, that is, they are oblong, glabrous, wholly adnate to the corolla by one edge and to the very 

 base of tlie filaments, the free margin at base usually coiuiivent with the free margin of the scale 

 of the adjacent pair. The ovate acute capsules are mostly 1 or 2 seeded. It must, in consequence, 

 be said that all these forms are markedly alike in structure of the individual raceme, in structure 

 of the corolla, in most essential features of the flower and in details of the fruit, and that most 

 differences relate to unstable vegetative organs, that no one of the forms has a constant character, 

 not even a vegetative one. Moreover, as said, all these named varieties intergrade and it is sig- 

 nificant that the intergrades, to a rather marked degree, occupy a terrain which is intermediate 

 between the areas of the various forms. 



