AN ACCOUNT OF THE GENUS ARGEMONE. 865 



point. In the meanwhile it seems better to keep it apart as a 

 species than to merge it in either of the others mentioned. From 

 A. alba especially, with which it practically agrees in fruit, it differs 

 in having the bracts close under the flowers, as in A. mexicana or in 

 A. platyceras. In var. ti/pica the calyx, except for the comparative 

 absence of armature and total want of hispidity, is much like that 

 of A. platyceras var. hispxida ; in. var. stenupetala, on the other hand, 

 the sepals are exactly like those of A. mexicana, of which it has, 

 moreover, all the habit, though it has a very different fruit. 

 Indeed, we have here again an instance of a plant which, had 

 it been European, would undoubtedly have received specific rank ; 

 it is only from a desire not to increase unduly, in the absence of a 

 more extensive suite of specimens, the already somewhat unmanage- 

 able list of proposed species, that it is denied the rank here. M. 

 Cosson, on receiving specimens of the plant from Mr. Pringle, 

 sowed some of the seeds ; the plants reared by him are in his 

 herbarium at Paris, and they show that the plant under cultivation 

 retains all its distinctive characters ; the petals particularly are 

 the same small narrowly lanceolate organs that we find them to be 

 in Pringle' s original specimens. 



From typical A. platyceras, with which the typical intermedia 

 best agrees, it differs in being much less aculeate ; this, however, 

 is only a relative character, and, though it readily admits of the 

 separation of the plants in the herbarium, does not necessarily 

 carry any great weight. The essential difference is in the fruit, 

 which, like that of A. alba, has thin brittle valves very sparingly 

 armed, instead of having hard, subligneous, very densely aculeate 

 valves, as in ^. platyceras. 



This is the plant characteristic of the prairies and the "sand- 

 draws" of Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas; its area, however, curves 

 south-westward through New Mexico and Northern Mexico to 

 Lower California. In the last-named locality it assumes a small- 

 flowered condition parallel to the alteration that occurs in the same 

 region in A. ochroleuca. And, if I am right in referring here A. 

 corymbosa Greene, this small-flowered state extends northwards into 

 the Mohave Desert. But there are no specimens of A. corymbosa in 

 Europe, and the original description is so inadequate that it might 

 apply equally to forms of A. alba, A. intermedia , or A. platyceras, no 

 character being given that serves to diagnose it from any of these. 

 But as Mr. Greene's excellent account in the Flora Franciscana of 

 the Californian plant that is not separable from typical A. platyceras 

 shows that he is thoroughly familiar with it, and as he has not 

 reduced his own A. corymbosa to that species, it seems clear, in spite 

 of some strictures by Mr. Brandegee on the subject, that Mr. 

 Greene's plant cannot with justice be reduced to A. platyceras. 

 The presumption which phytogeographical considerations afford 

 is altogether against its being a form of A. alba: and, though the 

 point will remain uncertain till Mr. Greene's A. corymbosa is fully 

 described, it seems probable that it will require to be referred to A. 

 intermedia, more especially since the form of this species identified 

 by Mr. Watson as A. albijiora (Palmer, n. 7, which differs greatly, 



