eels when lully mature. 



The many species of Merteiisia made by Greene and 

 Rydberg have no foundation whatever. It is an utter impos- 

 sibility to take a miscellaneous collection of specimens and 

 h-.ve anythin.s: but confusion result in attempting to make 

 them fit. M. Sibirica and paniculata run together and M. ob- 

 longifolia and lanceolata cannot be kept apart except bv arbi- 

 trary rules. M_. alpina is easily separated by the sessile an- 

 thers. The various species proposed are like the many spuri- 

 ous species of Krynitzkia based on mostly immature speci- 

 mens which are not sufficiently developed to show the normal 

 state of the plant, while the pubescence of which Greene 

 makes so much is simply a question of shade or sunshine. 



Coldenia Anglica Watson. In describing this species 

 Watson speaks of a flowering specimen of the writer's collec- 

 tion from San Quentin as belonging to it. The writer was 

 never in San Ouentin and so never collected there. Watson's 



Nama coldenioides n. sp. 



This is my No. 3869 in part from the Needles, California, 

 I^Iay 10, 1884, and distributed with Coldenia Palmeri. The 

 plant is almost exactly the same in habit and appearance as 

 Coldenia brevicalyx, except that the calyx lobes are a trifle 

 longer, the pod oblong and two-thirds the calyx, and few- 

 seeded, the corolla being about the size and shape of Nama 

 demissum and four times the calyx. General description. A 

 low shrub 1-2 feet high, divaricately and cymosely muci; 

 branched, main trunk "^tortuous with 'dark brown flaky bark In 

 thin layers, last season's twigs with w^hite sulcate and p':hc- 

 scent bark; twigs slender; lower internodes 2-3 inches long; 

 whole plant canescent with short and strigose hairs and some 

 setae; flowers in dense clusters at all the nodes, sessile, 6-10: 

 calyx ovate, hoarv, with green and subulate lobes, the whole 

 2 lines long, lobes fully as long as the tube; leaves obovate, 

 thick, with cuneate base and revolute margins, and with 

 ?.bout two pairs of nerves, entire, blades, 3-4 lines long, on a 

 slender petiole fully as long; growing among rocks. 



Plagiobothry-s Jonesii Gray is an Amsinckia in every- 

 thing but the flowers, which are white. It has the tessellated 

 pavement-like nutlets of A. tessellata and a httle sharper 

 rugae, and illustrates again the very slim foundation on which 



