NORTH AMERICAN NEILLI.E. 29 



racemose and the raceme braiiclied below : carpels as in the 

 preceding : seeds slenderly and ol)liquely pyriform. 



Erom the neighborhood of the sea eastward to the Sierras 

 and the Cascades, and from San Francisco nortlnvard to 

 Paget Sound ; the snrculose stems, often more than twenty 

 feet lon^, interlaced among the branches of willows and 

 laurels, and forming the most impervious thickets along the 

 banks of streams. Extremely variable as to pubescence, and 

 with little except the form of its seeds to mark it as distinct 

 from the eastern shrub, I can but propose its restoration to 

 specific rank ; for the seeds are very different. Nuttall, who 

 named it ribifoUa, must have seen a leaf-character ; but the 

 proper leaves of the true iV. opulifoUa I am now ignorant of. 

 The peduncular foliage, variable in both, exhibits general 

 differences. In the eastern species these leaves have a 

 rounded outline; in the western they are much more 

 elontrated and angular, wdth a decided leaning to the rhomboid, 



^,j,^^^. ^..- o 



or rhombic-lanceolate in Oregon and AYashiugton. 



Pursh, who appears to have seen only imperfect specimens 

 of this his species, did not know that the carpels became 

 inflated. Seringe accordingly excluded it from the Physo- 

 carpus section. The pods are, on the average, a little larger 

 than those of the eastern shrub, quite as much inflated, 

 sometimes more, sometimes less coherent at base, usually 

 glabrous northward, but, in California commonly a little 



tomentose. 



3. N. MONOGYNA (Torr.) Spircra monofjyna, Torr. 

 Ann. Lvc. N. Y. ii. 194 (1827) ; Eaton, Man. ed. 5. 409 



Raf 



ifl 



ip 



!f 



NeilUa Torre uL Wats 



Am. Acad. xi. 136 ; Plujsocarpus Torreyi, Coult. Eocky Mt. 

 Bot. 78. Barely 2 fe&t high, erect, scarcely surculose, freely 

 branching : leaves of rather deltoid-ovate outline, iucisely 

 3-lobed to the middle, the lobes nearly equal, the whole with 



