MIBIULUS LUTEUS AND SOME OF ITS ALLIES. 7 



Fl. Am. Sept. ii. 426 (1814), and Jacqu. f. Eel. i. 137, t. 92 (1816), 

 not Linn. M. punctatns Loisel. Herb. Gen. Amat. iii. 152 (IBIJ)). 

 The figures I have cited are all very beautiful representations of the 

 yellow-flowered Mumilm that was the first to appear in the gardens 

 of Europe ; and as that of Sims is the earliest of them, I wish to 

 quote, for the benefit of many American botanists in the far West 

 who may not have access to the liutanical Magazine, the history 

 which Sims gave of it: — -"He [Langsdorff] brought it, we are 

 informed, from Unashka [Unalaska] , one of the Fox Islands, and 

 seeds were transmitted to Mr. Hunnemann last spring, and through 

 him to Mr. Donn, curator of the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, who 

 kindly communicated to us in July last the specimen from which our 

 drawing was made, under the name of Mimulus LanijsdorjJU, which 

 we should have adopted, had it proved, as was supposed, a new 

 discovery." It must not be deduced from this that living plants 

 had been brought by Langsdorff from Alaska. He had brought 

 herbarium specimens in mature condition, and out of these Fischer, 

 at Gorenki, had selected ripe seeds from which he had grown the 

 plant for three years before Sims published the species. Nor is it 

 to be inferred that the plant is annual, an assumption that might 

 follow upon Sims' statement that from seeds sown in the spring 

 there were rank specimens in full flower as early as July. In 

 Western America many long-lived perennials, not only in this but 

 other genera, make their first flowering within a few months from 

 the germination of the seed. 



To this species I refer as notable varieties all the following 

 forms. They do, indeed, make up a rather polymorphous aggre- 

 gate ; but I do not at present see reason for assigning specific rank 

 to any of them. 



Var. GRANuis. M. rftittattis var. grandis Greene, Man. Bay-Reg. 

 211 (1854). An ahnost gigantic perennial, inhabitiug the margins 

 of streamlets in open ground among the foothills of the coast range 

 in middle California. Geographically it does not connect with 

 typical M. Langsdorju, as far as we know, but is distinguished 

 from it phytographically by its great size, short internodes, 

 ample short-petioled leaves, and dense showy racemes of very 

 large flowers. 



Var. iNsiGNis. M. guttatus var. insignis Greene, /. c. Annual. 

 erect, freely branching, with long internodes, scanty foliage, and 

 lax racemes of large flowers, the corolla with abundant dark red 

 spots. A most beautiful plant, apparently confined to certain 

 localities in Central California just to the northward of San 

 Francisco Bay. 



Var. platgphijllus. Perennial, stoutish, fleshy, simple, less 

 than a foot high, with few leaves and long internodes ; leaves 

 2 or 3 in. long, almost as broad, sessile, round-ovoid, coarsely 

 sinuate-toothed ; pedicels few, not equalling the leaves. Collected 

 loug ago, on the shores of Nutka Sound, by Barclay. 



Var. argutns. Smaller than the last, more slender, with short 

 internodes ; leaves ovate and deltoid-ovate, mostly sessile, 1 in. 

 long, sharply dentate and denticulate ; peduncles exceeding the 



