42 MuNz AND JOHNSTON: PLANTS OF CALIFORNIA 
field with the typical plant, and knowing quite intimately the 
low, much-branched, few-flowered montane plant, currently going 
under the name of P. Palmeri, we were much surprised to discover 
that this tall, virgate, many-flowered, desert plant was the typical 
form of P. Palmeri. While unquestionably, the montane plant 
is a close ally of the taller interior form, and as herbarium material 
shows, intergrades with it, yet we feel that so pronounced an ex- 
treme ought to be given nomenclatorial recognition, and so, for 
us, the mountain form becomes: 
” Penstemon Palmeri var. Grinnellii (Eastw.) comb. nov. 
Penstemon Grinnellu Eastw. Bull. Torrey Club 32: 207. 1905. 
The type of this form came from Mt. Wilson and is the form 
rather common in rocky ground in the pine belt, and to a less ex- 
tent in the upper chaparral belt, in the mountains of Southern 
California from the San Jacinto Range northward. With this 
restriction the species itself becomes strictly deserticolous. In 
its extreme the variety is characterized by its looser, shorter and 
fewer flowered inflorescence, lower and more slender stature and 
non-glaucous leaves. 
PENSTEMON CALCAREUS Brandegee 
Penstemon calcareus Brandegee, Zoe 5: 152. 1903. Not Jones, 
1908. 
Penstemon desertorum Jones, Contr. W. Bot. 12:59. 1908. 
We succeeded in making a fair-sized collection of this peculiar 
and interesting little plant, M, J & H. 4154. Thespecies is known 
from but two other collections, all of them from the Providence 
Mountains, where it grows in crevices of rocks on vertical cliffs. 
P. desertorum Jones, the type of which came from Kelso on the 
west slope of the mountains, is identical with Mr. Brandegee’s 
species; for isotypes of the former plant are exact matches for 
plants on the type sheet of the latter; in fact, Mr. Brandegee’s 
type, Mr. Jones’ Kelso collection and our plants form a remarkably 
uniform series in aspect and size, as well as in structural characters. 
P. calcareus Jones (Contr. W. Bot. 12: 60. 1908) is a homo- 
nym and appears to be a synonym of P. petiolatus Brandegee 
(Bot. Gaz. 27: 455. 1899). 
