356 BORAGINACEAE 



Leaves linear or narrow, entire, the lowest always opposite. Flowers in bractless 

 or bracteate spike-like racemes, the racemes mostly elongated. Pedicels persistent, 

 commonly turbinate-enlarged beneath the flower. Calyx 5-parted, indurated and 

 somewhat accrescent in fruit. Corolla white with yellow throat, salverform with 

 short tube; processes or crests in the throat none or weakly developed. Nutlets 

 ovate-lanceolate, smooth, rugose, tubereulate or sometimes furnished with very 

 small spines or minute barbed bristles or pricklj' points, keeled ventrally, not 

 keeled on the dorsal side or often keeled partially or completely. Sear set basally 

 or just above the base on the ventral side of the nutlet, concave or sometimes raised 

 slightly above the body of the nutlet. — Species about 40, North and South America 

 and Australia. (Greek, alios, diverse, and karua, nut, "in allusion to the extreme 

 diversity of the species as regards the surface of the nutlets.") 



Allocarya vs. Maccoya. — As indicated by A. Brand (Engler, Pflzr. 4='-: 159), Maccoya F. 

 V. Muell. is a prior name for Allocarya Greene. This priority and the validity of it is considered 

 in detail by I. M. Johnston (Contrib. Am. Arb. 3:14), but the logic of his position in regard to 

 Allocarya does not permit him to make transference of its species to Maccoya. Nor, for other 

 reasons, does the element of priority compel transference in this work. The genus name Allocarya, 

 in use for over fifty years and accepted as a genus in many of the most important publications in 

 systematic botany, ranging from Engler and Prantl's Die Natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien to at 

 least a dozen of the more important regional and state floras of the western United States, is fully 

 eligible for addition to the Nomina Generica Conservanda list. Means as to the formal legislation 

 will be undertaken. 



Technical characters in Allocarya. — The recognition of specific units in Allocarya presents 

 some difficulties because, as often in this family, differentiating characters depend chiefly, at times 

 almost exclusively, on the nutlet, various features of which are extremely variable. A studied 

 and critical segregation of collections into natural groups on the basis of the totality of constant 

 or nearly constant features seems to show that the shape and size of the nutlets, the nature of the 

 keel, the size, shape and position of the scar are the most dependable characters for use in the 

 limitation of species in the genus. The various species are only slightly or scarcely at all differen- 

 tiated by habit or by the racemes or flowers ; but, occasionally, in some limited or varying degree, 

 slight differences in habit and slight features of the racemes or flowers may be associated with 

 particular characters of the nutlets. Sculpturing of the nutlet is well developed in most species 

 but distinctive or markedly distinctive sculpturings peculiar to each species are less common. In 

 consequence, this feature of surface sculpturing, on account of its marked variability, has usually 

 only a secondary value or it may be quite trivial. 



In recent decades a number of Allocarya species have been published with coast line habitats 

 or near the coast habitats: Allocarya diffusa Greene at San Francisco, A. areolata Piper at Men- 

 docino on the Mendocino coast, A. scalpta Piper at Alder Point Flat in Humboldt County, A. dis- 

 par Piper at Agness on the Oregon coast, and A. reticulata Piper at Holmes Flat on the Humboldt 

 coast — all based mainly or wholly on dorsal sculpturings of the nutlets. 



Collections which have been made from narrow colonies at these stations or at various stations 

 along the coast line unquestionably represent at each station a genetically uniform population and 

 demonstrate conclusively that dorsal sculpturing of the nutlets is not significant for use in species 

 differentiation in this coast line assemblage. One collection or even one individual exhibits nutlets 

 vrith dorsal areas transversely long-rugose, short-rugose, interrupted-rugose, partially or variously 

 areolate, smooth on lower part or not smooth, carinate at apex or not carinate, tubereulate or not 

 tubereulate — these surface sculpturings occurring in varj-ing degree and in unequal and varying 

 combinations. It is plain, as a result of such series of comparisons, that the binomials named above 

 represent one species, — Allocarya californica, — a species quite uniform in all particulars save in 

 one feature and in that feature (nutlet surface sculpturing) consistently variable within rather 

 narrow limits. Moreover, this coast line unit, as thus distinguished, inhabits one distinctive phyto- 

 geographic area. Such an analysis of materials is representative of what is necessary throughout 

 Allocarya and may well serve, too, as a prudential guide generally in this family. 



In 1920, C. V. Piper published a considerable number of new Allocarya species (Contrib. U. S. 

 Nat. Herb. 22:79-113), a few of which have just been noticed. The exigencies of time permitted 

 only the briefest consideration of these new propositions in connection with preparation of the 

 writer's Manual. Though several of these species were recognized in the Manual, there was gen- 

 erated no feeling of confidence in them but only one of distrust. A few years later, on the basis 

 of much ampler material, opportunity came for a less hurried analysis of various authentic collec- 

 tions used in preparation of this National Herbarium paper and it was clear as a result of study 

 of the variability of the surface sculpturing of the nutlets in narrow colonies of obviously one close 

 population genetically, that Piper's species rested primarily on artificial concepts. By this clari- 

 fying accession of knowledge, Allocarya, although still laden with serious difficulties, seemed less 

 like a wide and hopeless maze when once this unstable groundwork of so many presumed new 

 species was exposed. 



