146 
River (Oregon) bearing only male flowers, and which in fact repre- 
sented, as it now appears, the first gatherings of the present genus. 
Six years later, with fuller materials in their hands, Torrey and 
Gray distinguished the Columbia at plants as a distinct species 
of the first-named genus (Sicyos oregona 
It is not clear why it was not retarted to the new genus, Echino- 
cystis, appearing on the same page, with which its given characters 
seem better to agree, and to which it was subsequently reduce 
It was not until 1853 that the peculiar germination, the large 
tuberous roots and the marked fruiting characters of some 
plants obtained from N. California, convinced Kellogg that a a: 
the above remarkable characters. ‘Two years later the ‘Booosalines 
of that Academy—published at that period in a newspaper, “The 
Pacific ”—contained a full description of this plant as a new genus 
under the name Marah,t so called from the bitter taste of the root. 
At the meeting of the Academy, only a fortnight later, Kellogg 
exhibited specimens and drawings of a plant from Placerville having 
similar vegetative characters but different flowers and fruit, now 
recogmised as Marah (M. Watsoni), but by him referred to Eehano- 
stis (E. muricata).t As he was at first in doubt as to which of 
e eee genera should receive it, it is surprising that the possible 
wing upon it the same — name as that o 
Ke original Marah muricatus did not occur to 
* Torrey and Gray, FL N. Am., * fhe: 542, 
Proc. Calif. Acad., i. (1855), 38. 
Le. 42, : ‘56. 
. Calif. Acad., ii 180?) 18. 
i] Ann. Sci. Nat. 6¢ sér. xii, 154. 
{{ MI. gquadalupensis, Wa fete her Pde: Am. Acad., xi, 138, 
