ROSE FAMILY 209 



E. -woodsii Lindl. (1820). R. yainacensis Greene, Pitt. 5:109 (1903), type loc. hills of Yainax 

 Indian reservation, s. Ore., Austin (prickles few, pedicels densely glandular-hispid, leaves pale 

 and puberulent below). R. muriculata Greene, Lflts. 2:263 (1912), type loc. Woodland, Cowlitz 

 Co., Ore., Coville (leaves smaller and thicker, glandular-muriculate beneath). R. brownii Kydb. 

 Bull. Torr. Club 44:70 (1917), type loc. n. side Mt. Shasta, H. E. Brown 349 (prickles weak, 

 leaves pilose beneath, only slightly glandular). Var. hispida Fer. Bot. Gaz. 19:335 (1894), 

 based on Eock Creek, Mont., Watson 124, and Pullman, Wash., Piper 1540; Jepson, Man. 498 

 (1925). R. macdougali Holz. Bot. Gaz. 21:36 (1896), type from Ida., Sandberg. R. nuthana 

 subsp. macdougali Piper, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 11:335 (1906). 



EosA RUBiGiNOSA L. Mant. 2:564 (1771). Eglantine. Sweet Brier. Stems 5 to 8 feet 

 high, with many strong hooked flattened prickles, sometimes also bristly; herbage aromatic; 

 pedicels short, glandular-hispid; leaflets doubly serrate, resinous-dotted beneath; sepals pin- 

 natifid, glandular-hispid, tardily deciduous; petals pink, notched at apex, 7 to 10 lines long; 

 calyx-tube ovoid or pyrif orm, glabrous and unarmed, or sometimes with a few prickles at base. — 

 European species cultivated in gardens, an occasional escape : betw. Fortuna and Carlotta, Hum- 

 boldt Co., Tracy 3981 ; Hydesville, Humboldt Co., Tracy 4508 ; Yreka, Butler 1802. 



2. R. calif ornica C. & S. California Rose. Stout, 3 to 6 feet high ; branchlets 

 glabrous or pubescent, non-glandular or with gland-tipped hairs; prickles few 

 or numerous, mostly stout and recurved, or sometimes straight, usually also with 

 one or a pair below the stipules; leaves puberulent or pubescent, especially be- 

 neath, and more or less glandular; stipules narrow, with lanceolate tips, sometimes 

 glandular-denticulate ; flowers few to many, often 20 to 40 in a panicle ; calyx-tube 

 glabrous (rarely pilose) , the lobes mostly prolonged into foliaceous serrate append- 

 ages; petals obcordate, % to 1 inch long; pedicels hairy and more or less glandular; 

 hips globose or ovoid, glabrous, 4 to 8 lines wide, usually somewhat constricted 

 below the calyx-lobes. 



Common everywhere on moist valley jflats, along river and creek banks and 

 margins of springs, often forming small thickets, 1 to 4000 feet : throughout cis- 

 montane California. May-Nov., flowering most freely in June. 



Note on variation. — Eosa californica is a variable complex which has been segregated by 

 various authors into a number of purported units. All of these segregates are about equally 

 untenable since they are based upon such criteria as pubescent or glandular condition; prickles 

 whether few or numerous, slender or stout, straight or curved ; calyx-tube whether ellipsoid, 

 oval or subglobose, or with depressed or constricted apex. It is believed, however, that the group 

 represents a "hybrid swarm" and that the occasional outstanding specimens result from chance 

 combinations of the independently varying characters of an interbreeding population. That 

 they cannot be considered true species or even well-marked varieties is indicated by the general 

 lack of geographic significance of these forms, and by the impossibility of so classifying any 

 considerable number of plants. In the artificial groupings which result from such attempts, 

 there are usually few or no specimens closely approximating the type, and plants representing 

 unnamed associations of characters are as frequent as those which have been designated as species 

 or varieties. 



If in the case of Eosa californica, for example, a full geographic series of specimens had 

 been available to the first describers of western roses it would seem that botanists (save for those 

 to whom segregation is a fixed practice), would have proposed much fewer specific units. Dif- 

 ferences, even slight and shadowy ones, have been emphasized out of proportion to the conditions 

 that exist in nature. Eesemblances have been minimized or ignored. A thicket of Eosa califor- 

 nica, one-eighth or one-fourth mile long, in a Coast Eange valley (as in Napa Valley) presents in 

 the field a marked uniformity as to the individuals which compose it. In the field resemblances 

 are outstanding, the prevailing likenesses which make the assemblage a natural specific unit are 

 very obvious. It is possible, to be sure, from such thickets to make specimens which will exhibit 

 certain individual variations; nevertheless when once such specimens are dissociated from the 

 main living mass, undue importance is attached to the peculiarities which they show. Practically 

 the same series of variations which mark E. californica occur in E. woodsii and E. pisocarpa, and 

 to a less extent in E. nutkana. 



Out of hundreds of specimens of E. californica one finds a few which combine the particular 

 fluctuating variations corresponding to a described segregate. In the list of stations indicated 

 below, such specimens are particularized by the name of the segregate in parenthesis ; the remain- 

 der, in general, represent Eosa californica in a fairly typical way. Coast Eanges : Yreka, Butler 

 1045; Hupa Valley, n. Humboldt Co., Chandler 1334; Willow Creek, Trinity Eiver, Tracy 3410 

 (E. myriantha Carr.) ; Blue Slide, Van Duzen Eiver, Tracy 6563; Camp Grant, Eel Eiver, Davy 

 5492; Ukiah, Davy 1015; Miller Canon, Vaca Mts., Jepson 13,885; Suisun Valley, Jepson 10,234; 



