GO 



riTTONIA. 



from mine in being of less robust growth, in petals of less 

 than lialf the size, and the margin of the leaf is creuate 

 rather than dentate. In all these respects it makes an 

 approach to E. affiais ; and, with botanists wlio are not averse 

 to recognizing subspecies in nomenclature, both this and the 

 following might go in as subspecies of affiinis ; to which 

 they are closely allied, but are far more than mere Yarieties. 



E. Arizonicus, Lemmon, in Gray, 1. c. As above liiuted, 

 this plant looks a good deal more like ordinary Rocky 

 Mountain R. affinis than does the preceding. It is neverthe- 

 less of a different mode of gi-owth, and may well be distinct 

 notwithstanding the failure of the character on which Dr. 

 Gray appears to havp placed most reliance. He says the 

 heads of aclienes are "globular." In only one of my speci- 

 mens do I find even an oval head. All the rest are more 

 elongated than that. And as for the " acute margins " of the 

 achenes, they are almost as much so in many a^specimeu of 

 i?. affims from Colorado. In leaf-outline and dentation this 

 plant makes no approach to R. suhsay Hiatus ; and its habitat 

 IS away up at timber line, along with Primula Parnji, Geiun 

 Rossn and other such plants, while tlie extensive tracts 

 between the two have no Ranunculus at all. 



R. Arizokicus, var. subaffixls, Gray, I.e. In the course of 

 a long experience with Ranunculus forms in the ., ... 

 learned to make less than I was taught to make of' the' lateral 

 diameter and the acuteness of the margin of an achene. I 

 should therefore have left this plant under the name R 

 (ilfims; although it is more slender, and smaller-flowered 

 than the Colorado plant. Dr. Gray left it to be inferred that 

 Its heads are globular. So far from that, they are as nearly 

 cylindrical as can be : quite like those of ordiua. , ... .^..... 

 Oil the San Francisco Mountain (which some recent explorers 

 and visitors affect to call Mt. Agassiz) it grows along cold 

 subalpine brooklets where it is associated with J/c'r/6'»..^o 

 l^ibinca, Primula Parryi, etc. 



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