2172 PITTONIA. 
unpublished. The stems of this species spring each from a 
small (1 or 2 inches long, 2 inch thick) deep-seated erect and 
solid rhizome. Instead of being “stout,” they are rather 
slender below, and, for two or three feet of their length, not 
only prostrate but rooting at each leafy joint; becoming 
stouter where they rise from the ground to support their two 
or three umbelliferous joints. With this very peculiar mode 
of growth the plant forms beds a foot or two deep in open 
marshy ground, green at all seasons of the year, flowering and 
fruiting from April until November. 
I have no doubt this is the Helosciadium (?) Californicum 
of Hooker & Arnott, so long wrapped in mystery. Their 
description applies well to our plant; is, indeed, the best 
description of it extant. 
ATENIA, 
Atenia, Hook. & Arn., Bot. Beech. 349 (1839): Edosmia, 
Nutt, Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 612 (1840): Carum § Edosmia, 
Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. i. 891 ; Baillon, Hist. vii. 190. 
Very distinguished are the authorities who have deemed it 
well to place under Carum the Pacifie American perennials 
here to be remarked upon. But, to neither Bentham nor 
Baillon was more than one of the species known ; even that 
one very imperfectly. Mr. Bentham could not determine 
whether its subterranean axis was a root or a rhizome, so 
meager was his material. 
Within the last ten years much has been learned concern- 
ing the habit and other characteristics of these plants; but 
no one appears to have recorded, what is perhaps their most 
striking peculiarity, their autumnal flowering. 
The Umbelliferæ as a family are northern plants and 
vernal—many of them very early-vernal. In California, where 
the genera and species are numerous indeed, most of them 
flower and perfect their fruit between the months of January 
and May. The species of Cicuta are, here as elsewhere, 
