386 BICKNELL: STUDIES IN SISYRINCHIUM 
mainly by the collections of $. B. and W. F. Parish. This is, 
apparently, the largest form of the species, frequently developing 
two leaf-bearing nodes, and with the basal leaves mostly about 
half the height of the close tufts, becoming even more than 4 mm. 
wide. This plant shows more or less discoloration on the her- 
barium sheet. It comes into flower in April and May. 
Specimens collected by Professor Greene at Tehachapi, still 
flowering towards the end of June, are tall, pale in color, with 
long, slender, narrowly attenuate leaves and somewhat flexuous, 
very firm, smooth-edged stems with a single node and slender 
peduncle; the bracts of the spathe are narrow and firm, the 
shorter primary one with a stiff corneous tip. 
Near this form may be placed a small, very different-appear- 
ing plant collected by Miss Alice Eastwood in San Emidio Cafion, 
Kern County, still flowering in October. Its leaves are short, 
especially the nodal leaf, the stems and peduncles very slender, 
the bracts mostly under 1.5 cm. in length, and the capsules only ' 
2-2.5 mm. high; the outer bract shows the same hardened nail- 
like tip seen in the Tehachapi specimens. 
In the absence of further material for study there may be re- 
ferred here, also, Dr. Edward Palmer’s xo. 374, collected on 
mountains in the southern part of San Diego County in full flower, 
July 12th. These specimens are noteworthy in several ways, 
especially by reason of the harshly cartilaginous-ciliolate edges of 
leaf and stem and the roots which are distinctly woody-thickened 
toward the base; the bracts also appear to be more membranous 
than in the more northern plant and are mostly very acute, but 
without an indurated tip. 
Another collection from the San Bernardino mountains must 
for the present find its place here also, although presenting many 
points of contrast. The stems are but 6-15 cm. high, many of 
them simple but others bearing two short peduncles ; the leaves. 
are short, relatively broad and mainly obtuse as are the broad 
short bracts, and both stems and leaves are more or less denticu- 
late or even cartilaginous-ciliolate. This plant was collected by 
S. B. Parish in flower, June 28th, at an altitude of 5,000 ft., and 
though strikingly at variance with the valley plant may well be a 
modified sub-alpine form. 
