219 PITTONIA. 
eireumseissile: seeds depressed-globose, whitish, the testa 
sinuously reticulate. 
Low moist places along the lower Sacramento, also in 
alkaline soil along streams at the eastern side of the Liver- 
more Valley in the Mt. Diablo Range, and in the Oakland 
Hills back of the cemetery. From the size of the plant it 
may have been included by Dr. Gray in his D. ellipticum, the 
prominent characteristic of which is made to be a “globular 
capsule, hardly surpassing the calyx, opening from the apex 
by valves." In the present plant the capsules may be found 
globular and hardly surpassing the calyx ; but that is a young 
and immature condition. It is, indeed, a curious fact in 
relation to all the species which I am familiar with, that the 
ovary, after the falling away of the corolla, obtains, first of 
all its full breadth, at which period it may be oval or even 
almost globose and little surpassing the calyx, after that 
increasing in length and becoming oblong or cylindrical. So 
peculiar, and so very slow is the fruit development that, 
after the lid has formed and fallen away, leaving an open 
capsule, the seeds remain firmly attached to the still living 
placenta, and seem not yet ripe. Iam thus fully assured that 
the latest character assigned to the still somewhat dubious 
D. ellipticum is no character at all; but my reasons for 
thinking D. patulum distinct from the Californian plant 
described by Elias Durand under the former name are, 
first, that the character of the androecium is so peculiar, 
and secondly, the habitat; for his plant came from the 
Sierra Nevada, mine is seemingly restricted to low and 
more or less alkaline soil in the region of the plains. Never- 
theless, I sent this plant to Dr. Gray many years go, from 
Sacramento, and believe he has included it in his 4 . ei/zpti- 
cum. I will here also record a suspicion I feel, tha ,the-xeal 
D. ellipticum of Nuttall’s manuscript, which was möt from 
California at all, but from many hundreds of miles further 
north, and from a widely different climatic region, will be 
found identical with D. Hendersoni. 
