﻿Western North America • 197 



The "Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky- 

 Mountains," under the command of Lieutenant Long, written by 

 Dr. James, is very interesting reading, and there can be no mis- 

 taking the approximate locality where he obtained his " Geranium 

 caespitose," as it is spelled in the original. In the latter part of 

 volume I. we find an account of their progress up the Platte to and 

 beyond the confluence of the two branches, and their eagerness to 

 ascend the mountains. Finally, having arrived at the foothills, 

 the following account is given : 



"The woodless plain is terminated by a range of naked and 

 almost perpendicular rocks, visible at a distance of several miles 

 and resembling a vast wall, parallel to the base of the mountains. 

 These rocks are sandstone, similar in composition and character to 

 that on the Cannon Ball creek. They emerge at a great angle of 

 inclination from beneath the alluvial of the plain, and rise abruptly 

 to an elevation of one hundred and fifty, or two hundred feet. 

 Passing within this first range, we found a narrow valley, separat- 

 ing it from a second ridge of sandstone of nearly equal elevation, 

 and apparently resting against the base of a high primitive hill be- 

 yond." At this place, "about the sandstone ledges," is where he 

 collected his Geranium, either in what is now the State of Ne- 

 braska, or, at most, in extreme northeastern Colorado. 



Dr. Trelease, in Mem. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. 4: 75, touched 

 upon this matter, where he says: "There is reason to doubt 

 whether James* plant is not really the preceding (G. Fremonti), for 

 he did not collect south of Pike's Peak, while this species, as I 

 understand it, is distinctively southern." 



Our plant, so far as I have been able to ascertain, does not 

 occur outside of New Mexico and Arizona, although specimens 

 from several other States, but belonging to some other species, 

 have been referred to it. All the evidence seems to indicate that 

 the real Geranium caespitosum is the plant now known as Geranium 

 Fremonti, at least so far as applies to the plant collected by Fre- 

 mont. What Fendler's specimens from "bottom lands of the 

 Mora river," and Lieutenant Abert's from the "Raton Mountains" 

 may be, I do not know, but they are hardly the same as Fre- 

 mont's specimens, and apparently different from G. atropurpureum. 



