38 PITTONIA. 
not acaulescent. And the justice of this criticism will fu 
ther appear to any one who will take the trouble of noticin, 
that V. Nuttallii and premorsa both have their leaves entit 
or nearly so, while the others, those of the South that hav 
been confounded with them, exhibit always a distinctly an 
often coarsely toothed foliage. 
Of the whole group, I recognize the following species: 
V. NurTALLIL Pursh, Fl. i. 174. This is usually small. 
and depressed, the small yellow flowers borne on peduncles” 
shorter than the long narrow leaves; herbage appearing 
glabrous, but a good lens revealing finely but densely and. 
somewhat retrosely ciliate leaf-margins. When growing m- 
stony or gravelly ground the root is more deeply seated, 80 
that the specimens when gathered show a considerable 
length of proper stem from undergound. In better soil, 
and in shady places, the caulescent character becomes more 
manifest in the living plant. From such a specimen the 
very fair figure given in Hooker' Flora must have been: 
drawn. 
The species belongs strictly to the Rocky Mountainregion, . 
no doubt. It is plentiful on the plains of western Kansas, . 
thence westward and northward to Utah, Arizona, and the | 
British border; hardly, however, to * British Columbia;" 
where either V. premorsa or some related species holds the 
field in its stead. Mr. Watson’s variety venosa, of the moun- 
tains of Nevada, I have not seen; but I suspect it may be 
the same as V. aurea, Kell. 
"€ 
V. ATRIPLICIFOLIA. Smallerthan the preceding, the whole 4 
stem including the long petioles and still longer peduncles 
only about 2 inches long; herbage cinereously puberulent, 
the leaf-margins in no degree ciliate; petioles 1 to 1} inches 
long, the lamina mostly less than } inch, that of the lowest 
leaf broader than long, all truncate at base and angularly 
but not deeply 5 to 7-lobed, or the uppermost 3-lobed and 
