40^ CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY NO. IS 



and branching widely in the middle, each branch terminated by a loni; 

 raceme of yellow flowers with green and leaf-like bracts. The plants 





are' often 4 feet high, growing in sand, never in alkaline clay, and hav- 

 frrg. like all the other Cleome and Cleomella species the apparance of 

 being iEumigrants. Usually the lower leaves have fallen and the stems 

 ivrc bare for' a foot or two above the ground. The development of th 

 pods 1^ a' matter of humidity at the time of ripening. Nearly always 

 thii pods are ovate in outline during the dry summer, but the earliest pods 

 (found subtended by leaves) have the horns developed. Certain groups 

 occur III- the genus. The group having the pods widest below the mid- 

 die contains C. comuta and plocasperma; the group having the pods 

 v.idest abo/^ the middle embraces the other species. C. Mexicana I do 

 iint know. This may belong in the first group as it is described a« 



L'ioboee-ovate. 



GJ'eomella brevipes is represented in my herbarium by various spe- 

 fiincns biit I can find no character separating it from C. parviflora. 

 F^is>Eistwood's C. alata is manifestlv the same thine. 



CRUCIFERAE, BY PAYSON 



Tn a^ recent revision of certain Cruciferous genera Edward Payson, 

 «T ic;raduate of the University of Wyoming gives certain vie\Vs which dif- 

 fer from- the accepted ones. The question is "Are his ideas based on 

 t^orrcct scientific grounds." His chief reason seems to be discoveries in 

 fTnetics, but to the casual examination they "seem to be an attempt to 

 niuke a case out of Ifttle or nothing, special pleading for a purpose, 



Th'> first question is "what is his equipment?" A graduate of the 

 anivcrdfy of'Wyoniing which is presided over by Aven Nelson who is 

 v;rthout an exception the worst blunderer among western botanists, and 

 v'ilhont ecological experience sufficient to conduct such studies. He 

 tPay^on)^ has had little field experience. His work is that of a closet 

 fotanist; This does not necessarily imp-ly that he is incompetent, but 

 such' botanists have, much to the detriment of systematic botany, been 

 rlto-cthcr too much in evidence. Then do his ideas on phyogyny meet 

 ttie approval of field" experience and of other botanists? 



^ On p. 7 he summarfzes so called evolutionary tendencies in Sis- 

 ymbrium as follows: 



tmiV. 



(1) An annual habit of gro^vth is more primitive than the j 



(2y Astipe or gynophore is believed to be a primitive character. 

 (3) A long, tierete pod is more primitive than a short or comn 



one 



low 



purplish 



f)' This idea wa.s held by Gray as is shown 



