2Jt. Contributions to Western Botany. 



points. It has been said that the early flowers are long pe- 

 duncled and sterile while the later ones are short peduncled and 

 fertile, but this is not the case in any specimens seen. The 

 fertile flowers are without remains of older peduncles, whde the 

 early flowers with long peduncles are also fertile so far as seen. 



Astragalus nitidus Douglas Herb. Hort. Soc. Hooker Fl. i 

 149, cannot be definitely settled as distinct without a compari- 

 son with the actual types of Laxmanni and adsurgens. It is 

 distinct from the figures of those species, and from the Japan 

 species, but the specimens in American herbaria from Europe 

 though seemingly distinct from our species vary much among 

 themselves, and to add to the confusion are badly named. 



Astragalus Hookerianus (T. & G. Fl. i 693) Gray Proc. Am. 

 Acad, vi 215. The writer fails to see on what nomenclatural 

 basis E. L. Greene in Pittonia iii 186 makes another synonym, 

 A. Sonneanus, for this species. On the DeCandollean basis 

 the name of Torrey and Gray is tenable because the prior name 

 in the genus A. Hookerianus Dietr. Syn. PI. iv 1086 (1847?) 

 is only a synonym for A. ervoides H. & A. Bot. Beechey 417. 

 (1846); while on the Brittonian basis Phaca Hookeriana T. & 

 G. (1840) antedates them all. Again Bunge 169 takes up the 

 name A. ervoides Turcz. Fl. Baic. Dah. 340. "Bull. Soc. Nat. 

 Mosc. 90 (1838)" which antedates the name of H. & A. and 

 proposes to call it a synonym for a supposed species of A. Gray- 

 Should the species of Turczaninow not prove to be a synonym 

 then the name of Dietr. might stand as the first name in the 

 genus with those who care to split hairs in order to make a 

 synonym, but under the Brittonian system under which Mr. Greene 

 is supposed to train his name is untenable. Should it be best to 

 abandon the name A. Hookerianus for the Californian species 

 there is already a name ready to take its place in A. Whitneyi 

 Gray which hardly deserves to rank as a variety. 



Yicia semicincta Greene. Goose Lake YaIley,Car., July, 1895. 

 Mrs. R. M. Austin. Very leafy, 2 feet high, perennial with many 

 slender underground stems; leaves widely spreading, about 4 

 inches long, of 10 pairs of oblong- linear to narrowly elliptical 

 leaflets an inch long; leaflets obtuse, apiculate, the upper pairs 



