DENDROMECON. 295 
A Stupy oF DENDROMECON. 
Having concluded a prolonged and laborious investigation of 
Platystemon and Eschscholtzia and their nearer allies, I have 
been unwilling to leave the subject of the West American 
Papaveracex, without having made careful inspection and com- 
parison of such material of Dendromecon as was at hand. 
This is a genus much more restricted in its habitat than either 
Platystemon or Eschscholtzia; the latter occupying, according to 
my rough estimate, about three times as much territory as 
Dendromecon. And while the herbaceous genus scatters its 
species over all plains as well as mountain slopes, each secluded 
mountain valley, every stretch of broad and sunny plain, even 
every one of several separate and remote deserts of different 
soil and diverse in altitude—all and each of these, as well as 
all intervening mountain ranges, isolated or connected, has its 
Eschscholtsias, and in profusion, Dendromecon, on the other hand, 
is not only limited, apparently, to the one State of California, but 
is even there confined to the bushy slopes of hill and mountain 
sides. And, in so far as I have observed, it never grows in 
_ masses or forms thickets by itself. One bush here, another 
yonder, and not many seen in a whole day’s journey, is my im- 
pression as to the distribution of these interesting shrubs. 
Up to this date only three species of Dendromecon have been 
proposed; D. rigida, Benth., D. Harfordt, Kellogg, D. flexilis 
Greene; the latter so obviously and so totally distinct from the 
other two that any botanist denying its title to the rank of a 
species exposes himself to a suspicion of taxonomic incompe- 
tency, or else to that of being ruled by personal rather than phyto- 
graphic motives; the latter, a course taken by some, and that 
very unequivocally, and in such wise that he who runs may 
read that motive. There is no botanist living, either in Cali- 
