462 



SOLANACEAE 



exserted ; berry slightly depressed-globose, dull or greenish white, glaucous, 4 to 

 6 lilies broad. 



Dry stony hills and mesas, 500 to 2000 feet : Inyo Co. ; central Mohave Desert. 

 Mar.-Apr. 



Field note. — In winter Lyciura pallidum var. oligospermum is deciduous and it is at such time 

 that its thorniness comes into full prominence — hundreds of thorns bristling all over the shrub, 

 thickly set along all the stems and branches. Save for representatives of Caetaceae this species is 

 the thorniest shrub in the central Mohave Desert. Towards the end of February the leaf -buds 

 burst, and after this time the thorns are masked by tender light green foliage. Even when mature 



the leaves are succulent and contain more water than 

 the leaves of most other desert shrubs. The flowers 

 usually appear early in March. 



Locs. — Inyo Co.: Argus Range, Epling 4" -An- 

 derson. Mohave Desert: Slate Range, Allison 

 Krames; Garlic Spr., near Tiefort Mt. (Ann. Mo. 

 Bot. Gard. 19:305); Barstow, Jepson 6148. 



Refs. — Ltciuii pallidum Miers, Ann. & Mag. 

 Nat. Hist. ser. 2, 14:132 (1854), type from N. Mex., 

 Fendler 670. Var. oligospermum C. L. Hitchc, Ann. 

 Mo. Bot. Gard. 19:304 (1932), type loe. Barstow, 

 Jepson 6606. L. pallidum Jepson, Man. S90 (1925). 



6. L. cooperi Gray. Peach Thorn. 

 (Fig. 451.) Thorny compact densely leafy 

 shrub, 2 to 4 (or 8) feet high, the branches 

 and branchlets set mostly at right angles; 

 bark smooth, dark red or sometimes whitish, 

 in age black; herbage and cah'x minutely 

 pubescent and more or less viscid; leaf- 

 blades oblanceolate or oblong, 4 to 8 (or 12) 

 lines long, narrowed to a short petiole; calyx 

 cylindric with truncate base or in fruit en- 

 larged and bowl-shaped, its broad lobes % 

 to as long as the tube ; corolla greenish-white, 

 funnelform, minutely and rather weakly 

 puberulent, rarely quite glabrous, 5 to 6 

 lines long, about twice the length of the 

 calyx, its limb 4 to 5 lines broad, its lobes 

 rotate, later recurving, the sides revolute in 

 such a way as to give a horn-like appearance 

 to each lobe ; ovary with 2 horizontal sutural 

 depressions, one on each side above the mid- 

 dle ; fruit short-cylindric or a little con- 

 tracted at apex, subglobose, 3 to 4 lines high, 

 hard or bony at maturity, the lateral sutures 

 conspicuous. 



Desert caiions and mesas, 500 to 4000 

 feet : upper San Joaquin Valley ; Sierra Ne- 

 vada in Kevn Co. ; Inyo Co. ; Mohave Desert ; Colorado Desert (ranges on west and 

 north borders). East to the Colorado River Valley and southwestern Utah. 

 Apr.-June. 



Field note in the Calico ^Mts. — On the mesas north of Barstow, in the Calico Wash, in the 

 Calico Mountains and on the Coolgardie Yucca Mesa this species is frequent and was here first 

 studied by the writer as a field subject in the winter and spring of the years 1915-1916. In the 

 Calico Mountains the shrubs are densely tloriferous on the under side of the branchlets which 

 often bear as many .ts 38 flowers in the space of two inches. The fruit, it was found, is marked 

 by a distinctive feature, namely two transverse sutures, one on each side of the berry above the 

 middle, a peculiarity so remarkable that, since not described in any book, it was thought in the 

 field to indicate a new entity. But these structures proved to be a mark truly characterizing 

 Lyeium cooperi and distinguishing it from all other American species of the genus. Years later 



Pig. 450. Lyoium pallidum Miers var. 

 OLIGOSPERMUM C. L. Hitchc. ; fl. branchlet, 

 X 1. 



