136 CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY 
the type of filix. So the contest is between filix and Athyrium as to 
riority and not with Cystopteris. Therefore Maxon’s and Underwood’s 
references of Cystopteris to Felix are unwarranted. : 
Nothoscordum striatum. This plant has much the same habit as 
Allium and the markings of the bulb are about as in A. Bolanderi or 
hyalinum. The bulbs when mature are about an inch long, ovate, and 
with the thin coats of the onions. At the junction of the base of bulb to 
the roots, bulblets are produced outside of the coats, are ascending and 
sharp-pointed, several of them to a bulb, and white. 
Androstephium violaceum Torr. This has the same kind of prop- 
agation as Nothoscordum, but the bulb coats are thick and very fibrous 
with many vertical ribs. 
In Coulter’s Flora of Texas he left out the genera Cooperia, Crinus, 
and Zephyranthes on page 430. But he put them in the key on page 
429. 
Amsonia by Woodson. In this recent brochure things have been 
brought up to date and the species revised, but in my opinion, too many 
species have been recognized in the genus. There are in all probability 
few genera younger than Amsonia, and the so-called species are too con- 
fluent for good species, but the collections are as yet too meager for 
certainty in defining the proper limitations. I am sure that Amsonia 
brevifolia and tomentosa are only forms of the same species. The char- 
acters given by Woodson do not hold out. I have seen acres of them and 
studied them in the field fully. 
e geological maps accompanying the brochure are open to serious 
criticism. Mr. Woodson does not pretend that the maps are his own, but 
says they are copied from sources which he considered authentic; my 
criticism is therefore not aimed at Woodson but at the author of the 
It is natural to want to find the origin of species during geological 
time, but up to the present there is too little authentic material on which 
to work, and in addition, the paleobotanists who have described most of 
the species are not competent systematists, and their results are mostly 
