282 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



•t- l^upici, Perfuruti: nuculie i:)aruin incurvos, dorso lato convexo 

 augiistissime cariuatae, intus supra basim in pscudo-umbilicum pro- 

 fuiuUim caruncula depressa aumiliformi marginatum excavataj : 

 lierbic laxa3, graciles ; spicis vel racemis cyma) uui- vel bipari 

 demum elougatis sparsiiloris fere ebracteatis ; calyce alte 5-par- 

 tito laxe erecto persisteute. — Plagiobothrys, Fisch. & Meyer, & 

 DC. Prodr. 1. c. 



P. KUFESCENS, Fisch. & Meyer, 1. c, A. DC. I.e. Myosotis alba, 

 Colla, Act. Taur. (PI. Bert. no. 88), fide A. DC. M. fulva, Hook. & 

 Arn., Bot. Beech. 38, non 369. Eritrichium fulvum, A. DC. Prodr. 

 X. 132; Gray, Proc. Am, Acad. xvii. 226. — Chili, Bertero, Bridges, 

 and others. W. California on the border of Oregon, Howell, and in 

 Colusa and ¥A Dorado Counties, 7l//-s. Za^^e-Cwn-a/j, 1884. Also near 

 Los Angeles, coll. /. C Nevin, 1882, recently received. Only in the 

 North American specimens which have now happily come to hand, 

 first from Mr. Howell and then from Mrs. Layne-Curran, have I mature 

 fruit, verifying the original character. But I am now able to verify 

 it on a specimen of Bertero's no. 443, immature though it be. The 

 mature nutlets in the Californian plant are from a line and a half to 

 two lines long. Their size is not mentioned by Fischer and Meyer; by 

 De Cantlolle they are said to be hardly over a line in length ; probably 

 not well grown in the cultivated plant. Neither of the authorities 

 mentions the narrow keel on their back. Their form, " illis Ecliii sub- 

 similis," is well given by the founders of the genus ; also the " rugosa, 

 tuberculata " by them, and the reference of this to the inner side of 

 the nutlet by De Candolle. There is considerable variation in these 

 respects, as well as in the texture of the pericarp, which commonly be- 

 comes cartilanineous or thin-crustaceous, the back either ruijose with 

 slender and elevated transverse wrinkles, and with or without minute 

 papillie in the interspaces, or with these and no rugosity, or with both 

 obsolete. The keel and an obscure or manifest acute crest or angle on 

 each side, between the back and inner face, are sometimes almost 

 entire, sometimes denticulate or even muriculate, as are the sharp ven- 

 tral rugaj. The '' strophiole," or as I prefer to call it the (false) 

 caruncle, is well developed in all mature fruit as a tumid ring around 

 the orbicular cavity. It is never left behind on the gynobase, as De 

 Candolle describes: what was taken for such may be the thickened and 

 projecting portions of the gynobase between the insertions, which are 

 in the hollows. Th6se hollows when fresh are more or less umbonate, 

 the umbo fitting into the round and ample cavity of the nutlet. The 

 caruncular ring is complete, but the basal side is thicker tlian the 



