. PLATYSTEMON AND ITS ALLIES. 157 
Between it and the most conspicuous of West American 
papaveraceous genera, Hschscholtzia, there is so little resem- 
blance that it is not easy for an unbiassed mind to reconcile 
them as members of the same natural family. For a genus 
in any way analogous to Platystemon, looking to the Medi- 
terranean region of the Old World, we find it in Hypecoum. 
Here we have a similarly articulated carpel made up of 
one-seeded joints. It is, however, a mere analogy; for the 
habit of Hypecoum, its floral structure and all are so differ- 
ent that no one with any correct notions of plant affinities 
would ever pronounce them to be near allies. But, however 
widely differing from the papaveraceous type in the char- 
acter of its fruits, as well as in the matter of its entire and 
opposite or whorled leaves, its flower-buds bear the closest 
resemblance to those of Papaver itself; so that a botanist, 
supposing him to see for the first time a well developed 
Platystemon plant just beginning to flower, and still exhib- 
iting a great number of buds, if he do not stop to examine 
the pistils, must inevitably judge the plant to be at least a 
very near ally of Papaver itself. And I believe this judg- 
ment to be as good as any; and that Platystemon is indeed 
nearly allied to the very type of the Papaveracee. 
The subjoined attempt to distinguish and classify the 
species of Platystemon is the result of months of laborious 
examination and comparison of a great wealth of herbarium 
material. My own herbarium, at the inception of the task, 
was rich in unstudied material chiefly of my own collecting 
during years of residence in California. The equally 
seviceable bundles of the United States herbarium here in 
Washington were of course readily accessible; and from 
California there have been placed at my disposal the private 
collection of Mr. Samuel B. Parish, of San Bernardino 
and that of the California Academy of Science at San 
Francisco ; this last doubtless by far the most extensive 
