312 MALVACEiE. Malvastrum. 



-1— H— -)— -I— -1— Herbage and calyx canescent with close and fine stellular pubescence, no 

 hispid or hirsute hairiness : involucellate bracelets small and mostly deciduous. 



++ Frutesceut or truly shrubby : leaves barely lobed : carpels in age glabrous or nearly so, 

 smooth, thin-walled, 2-valved. 



= Flowers glonierate-spicate to racemose-paniculate : buds acutish. 



M.* Davidsonii, Robinsox, n. sp. Tall shrub or small tree " six to fifteen feet in height," 

 brauclilets stout, flexuous : leaves thickish, but not rugose, rather large, 2 to 3 inches in 

 diameter, deeply cordate with narrow sinus, 5-angled or shallowly 5-lobed, varying to 3-lobed, 

 irregularly dentate, covered on both sides (as are the branchlets and petioles) with copious 

 loose whitisli stellate tomentum : flowers numerous, clustered in or shortly racemose from 

 the upper axils aud also forming dense rather stiff sub-spicate terminal inflorescences : 

 bractlets considerably shorter than the calyx : calyx-segments cauescent-tomentose and with- 

 out more naked mucrouate tips, enervose or faintly 1-nerved: petals rose-purple, half to 

 three fourths inch long : carpels stellate-tomentose above. — M. splendidum, Davidson, 

 Erytliea, iv. 68, not Kell. — Sandy soil, S. California from the Coast Mts. of Los Angeles 

 Co., where coll. in San Fernando Valley, 1895, by Dr. A. Davidson (who first distinguished 

 the species from ^1/. Fremontii), and earlier at Big Tajungo by Lyon, to Antelope Valley, 

 Parish, no. 1955, and Bear Valley, San Bernardino Co., Parish, Aug. 1879, the earliest col- 

 lection. The last two specimens have leaves with more rounded lobes. This species, here- 

 tofore referred to M. Fremontii, differs from it in its less densely tomentose calyx, shorter 

 bractlets and deeply cordate leaves. Its obsoletely nerved calyx aud some other characters 

 argue for its distinctness from the still somewhat obscure M. splendidum, Kellogg. 



M. Thurberi, Gray. Stems 3 to 15 feet high, with the woody base often an inch or more 

 thick : pubescence all very short and close, almost scurfy : leaves roundish, mostly subcor- 

 date, crenate, obscurely 3-5-lobed or some 3-cleft, inch or two in diameter, some larger ; 

 flowers in sessile or short-peduncled clusters, spicately or sometimes paniculately disposed on 

 virgate nearly naked branches, " fragrant " : calyx-lobes broadly ovate, obtuse and with or 

 without a short point : petals about half inch long, rose-purple : carpels obovate-oval, very 

 like those of M. Fremontii. — PI. Thurb. 307 ; Brew. & Wats. 1. c. 85. Malva fusclculata, 

 Nutt. in Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 225.1 — Dry hills, &c., S. California, from San Luis Obispo to 

 San Diego, and on the islands ; also east to Arizona ; first coll. by Nuttall. (Sonora, Thurber.) 



Var. laxifloruiQ, Gray. Inflorescence somewhat loosely paniculate. — Proc. Am. 

 Acad. xxii. 291. M. splendidum, Kellogg, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci. i. 65 ; Brew. & Wats. 1. c, 

 but wrong carpels described.^ — Sierra Santa Monica to Los Angeles and to S. Utah, a 

 mere form of the species. 

 = = Flowers chiefly terminal on the branchlets of a pyramidal and more or less fastigiate 



panicle, not evidently racemose : buds obovate, very obtuse. 



M.* nesioticum, Robinsox, n. sp. A much branched shrub ; brandies canescent with a 

 minute tomentum : leaves of firm texture, somewhat pentagonal, shallowly 3-5-lobed, when 

 well developed deeply and narrowly cordate, green and appearing smooth (yet miimtely 

 stellate-pubescent) above, canescent beneath, rather short-petioled, often revolute at the 

 crenate or subentire margins : branches of the rather rigid panicle numerous, ascending : 

 calyx finely canescent-pubescent ; segments obtusish, not equalling the tube : bractlets a 

 third to half as long as the calyx : rose-purple petals 6 to 8 lines long. — M. Thurberi, var. 

 laxljlorum, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xxii. 291, in small part; Greene, Bull. Calif. Acad. Sci. 

 ii. 392. — Island of Sta. Cruz, California, Greene, 1886, Brandef/ee, 1 888. A doubtful species, 

 perhaps only an extreme form of the variable M. Thurberi, as regarded by Dr. Gray, but 

 with decidedly different foliage and inflorescence from any variety of the mainland as yet 

 seen. 

 ++ ++ Herbaceous, low, from running rootstocks : leaves pedately 3-5-parted or nearly 



divided : carpels round-reniform, tomentulose-pubescent, reticulate-rugose, tardily and 



incompletely dehiscent. 



1 Add syn. Mnlvngtrum. fasciculatum, Greene, Fl. Francis. 108. Malveopsis fasciculata, Kuntze, 

 1. c; Greene, Man. Bay-Reg. 66. 



'■^ Add S3'n. Malveopsis splendida, Kimtze, 1. c. 



