21 



eral important particulars. It is comical to see how the mere 



name of Bailey sets the Bronx menagerie in a rage, and all oe- 



ause he was the first man to dare to attack the Brittonian system. 



They jump on him like wild cattle of the Plains on the hair of a 

 dead coyote. It might be a good idea for our Bronx friends to get 

 shod as they have quite a job ahead of them Killing off all such 

 enemies, or they might be as badly off as the Kilkenny cats, noth- 

 ing but the tails left. 



Scirpus Clementis n. sp. 



Allied to S. csespitosus. Stems densely matted like Carex fili- 

 folia, deeply silicate, 2-3 inches high, erect and ptrict, leafless. 

 Leaves thick, fiilform, 2-grooved above and deeply grooved below, 

 very blunt with a rounded callus. Head terminal, abom 2-fiowered, 

 subtended by a colored and leaf- like bract 3-4 times as long. 

 Scales elliptical, obtuse, about 3 mm. long, tawny. Akene about 

 2 mm. long, obovate and triquetrous, with 3 long filaments and 

 no bristles, papillate, with a minute mucro at the almost truncate 

 tip. Eae Lake, King's River, California, alpine, July 2" 1910, 

 Mrs. Clemens. 



LILIACK.E. 



Zygadekus. In speaking of the poisonous effects of this ge- 

 nus Piper, in Fl. Wash. 198, ea>ts doubt on the fact and intima- 

 ting that it is a fiction. One cannot be too careful in discounting 

 common experience as the baneful effects are accentuated by t*up- 

 posedly correct scientific publications like this, causing deaths. 

 In 1894 I was (in their estimation) "floored" by C. Hart Merriam 

 and others of the Biological Survey by the specious argument 

 that the Gila monster could not be poisonous because it had no 

 poison fangs, while I had records of deaths by it. Now its poison- 

 ous nattare is admitted in spite of absence of fangs. 



In the case of the poison sego (Z. paniculatus probably) there 

 are several well authenticated cases of deaths within i4 hours by 

 people eating the roots. The deaths all ended in convulsions like 

 Veratrum poisoning. Years j»go' 1 sent a quantity of the bulbs to 

 Washington for analysis, but for 'Muck of material" the test' war- 

 not carried beyond determining that they contained an alkaloid 

 which "probably was the poisonous principle". We know that Ve- 

 ratrum contains several poisonous alkaloids and is a'close relative. 

 Prof. Orson Howard (formerly Prof, of botany in • ur state univer- 

 ity) was out on the hills, with a companion digging and eating se^o 

 (Calochortus Watsoni) bulbs, when they happened to find a par- 



