STUDIES IN THE HERBARIUM AND THE 

 FIELD.— No. I. 



BY ALICE EASTWOOD, 



Curator of the Herbariuin. 



CONTENTS. 

 Plates VI-VII. 



I. Report on a Small Collection of Plants from the White 



Sands of New Mexico 7i 



II. On Spurless Forms of Aquilegia 76 



III. Three Undescribed Californian Plants 78 



IV. The Manzanitas of Mt. Tamalpais 81 



Explanation of Plates 86 



I.-REPORT ON A SMALL COLLECTION OF PLANTS FROM THE 

 WHITE SANDS OF NEW MEXICO.^ 



Some months ago, Professor T. D. A. Cockerell of the 

 College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, New Mexico, 

 sent me a small package of plants for determination. They 

 were collected on the ''White Sands" in August, 1896. 

 They hint of a very interesting flora and indicate by a close 

 alliance with well known species and by marked differences 

 from the same, a peculiar environment and probably some 



1 The traveler coming down Tularosa Creek, in the Sacramento Mts. of New 

 Mexico, sees before him in the distance what appears to be the sea, with heavy 

 breakers rolling towards the shore. As he descends to the valley, he gradu- 

 ally realizes that the apparent ocean is motionless, and is above, not below, 

 the level of the plain. Coming at length within a few miles of it, he sees 

 before him what are to all appearances great banks of snow; and were it not 

 for the intense heat, the illusion might be complete. Actually arriving at the 

 banks, he finds nothing but pure white sand, piled up perhaps to a height of 

 fifty feet above the plain, from which it rises abruptly, and continuing in un- 

 dulating hillocks as far as the view extends. It is this remarkable formation 

 that is known as the White Sands. Prof. C. H. T. Townsend has described 

 it in similar words in an unpublished paper on the Distribution of Life in the 

 Southwest and Mexico; and I believe almost anyone would receive the same 

 impressions on visiting the locality for the first time. 



[ yi ] November 23. 1897. 



