PLATYSTEMON AND ITS ALLIES. 155 
stance breaking up and falling away, while the floral en- 
velope remains still in place. While this character of the 
persistence of the corolla is not absolute; while, for example, 
in the naked-fruited species a few of the latest and reduced 
infertile flowers show persistent petals, and while the very 
earliest and most vigorous flowers in the marcescent species, 
seem promptly to shed their petals and their stamens, yet 
the character is a positive one, and can not safely be ignored; 
for in the herbarium certain species always show at least 
the great multitude of their petals marcescent, and certain 
others are as distinctively naked-fruited. And let those who 
delight in theori zing as to the causes of those diversities, and 
the conditions under which characters originate, explain 
this: that the naked-fruited Platystemon species are distri- 
buted partly along the seaboard, under the influence of the 
fogs and rains and sea-spray, and partly in the deserts of 
Nevada, Utah and Arizona and Mexico; whereas the species 
whose carpels in maturity are covered up under persistent 
petals and stamens, are those of the coast range of moun- 
tains partly, and partly of the only moderately arid sections 
of the fertile interior plain of California. The very extremes 
of humidity and aridity present us with the naked-fruited 
Platystemons, 
As to the filaments, the usually dilated and petaloid char- 
acter of which suggested the name of the genus, there is 
very great diversity of form, as there are likewise consider- 
able differences in different species as to the anthers them- 
selves. What these differences are will be seen in the 
diagnosis of the several species. The like is true as regards 
the carpels themselves, which, in a number of species, are 
scarcely torulose, in others strongly torulose, in many most 
strictly and beautifully moniliform. Some are strongly 
carinate dorsally, others not in the least so. The sides of 
Some are traversed by delicate lines, those of others marked 
