CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY NO. TS 



in perfectly honest investigators, and that every one has the fight i® 

 respectful treatment so long as he does not assume as Rydberg ahirays 

 has, a sublime superiority due to "superior and most painstaking study," 

 which to me is pure botanical bunk. Greene the boss bluffer ' is dead, 

 Rafinesque ^Iso is dead, and the rest of the bluffers are rapidly sinking 

 to their proper level. 



Wc have certain generic concepts such as Aplopappus, Aster, Efitri- 

 chium, Astragalus, Carex, etc. Those less i^emented such as 'Aplopappus, 

 Eritrichium and Astragalus have been split ad infinitum, and v^^hat good 

 has it done? I kept up Krynitzkia for the simple and only reason that 

 Gray adopted it in place of Eritrichium on grounds of' priofrty. '^Ciyp- 

 tantha I did not adopt for the reason that it was adopted by Greene, and 

 I do not yet know which name should stand of all that have been pro- 

 posed for the Gra}'an concept of Eritrichium, and further I do not 'intend 

 to go into it till I get to it in regular course. I have long since lost mj 

 faith in the reliability at last resort of even Gray, to say nothing of the 

 smaller fry. The older I get the less I think of genera fouiide'd on ^his- 

 tology. There is no relief in sight till we can grow all plants. 



I do not at this time intend to go into Payson's work on this genas. 

 I spent a year on his Cruciferous segregates before I cared to. state my 

 opinion, and this genus I will study in due time, but my field knowledge, 

 gained in 50 years of actual field work, leads me to discount at lea?t half 

 of his species. I do not see how any such list of species could have 

 developed under the ecological conditions prevailing in the West since 

 Tertiary times. I am inclined to think that a few species are" in -a stale 

 of flux, as is Astragalus lentiginosus, such as Eritrichium glomeratum 

 and leucophaeum, and that they liad far better "be kept in a big specific 

 group concept than to be split up. 



Johnston. Proc. Am. Acad. 68 p. 46. In renaming Echinos,permum 

 .subdecumbens Parry as Hackelia floribunda Johnston says: "The" use of 

 Parry's name in the Rocky Mountain Manual is incorrect. The plant is 

 definitely blue-flowered, as the lack of mention of the color in Parrv's 

 observations would suggest.*' Now the type of Echinospermum -siibde- 

 aimbens was got by Parry on the slopes of the north bench south of 

 Ensign peak, Salt Lake City, and every year I was over "that very'bencTi 

 rind for this reason I say without any hesitation that 'Johnston' is wrontr 

 The flowers range from sky-blue to pure white and every variation can be 

 had at any time when the plant is in bloom. I have always 'thought It 

 a well-marked variety of E. florlhundum which is Bienhiak afid grows In 

 the adjoining canon. 



In his various studies of tlie Eritrichium group of borages' rohn^ban 

 seems to be gravitating back to the primary position of Gray, and also 

 sliding back into the Bnttonlan camp of splitters. I hope that a -field 

 botanist can take his results and identifv anything he finds thereby but 

 I am much inclined to tliinlc that he will land at Patton,^CaTiforhia^as a 

 ward. (Patton is where tliey Tceep all the nutty 'folks. ) 



