l^OETH AMERICAN RANUNCULI. 65 



the AvLole plant is soft-villouB. The floAvers are a haif-iucli 

 broad, and tlie very small aclienes have a short sabiilate 

 style. The habitat of the plant is j^eculiar. It belongs to n 

 much lower altitude than JR. natans, and grows with Z?, 

 SGelerafus, in the soft or half-dried mud of brackish lake- 

 shores on the plains of Idaho and Utah. I obtained it in 

 July last, on the muddy shores of Bear Lake, near Mont- 

 pelier, Idaho, and along with it the following : 



E. LLMOSO X SCELERATUS. Parted to the base into many 

 ascending or ultimately reclining branches a foot or two in 

 length ; sparsely villous throughout : leaves round-renifurm, 

 parted into 5 to 7 cuneate-obovate cleft and coarsely toothed 

 segments : profusely floAvering, the corollas ^ inch wide : 

 acheues none (the plants all wholly sterile). A beautiful 

 hybrid, very manifestly of the parentage indicated, both 

 species abounding together in the locality. 



SCHIZONOTUS AND SoLANOA. 



In the opinion of recent authors who have given special 

 attention to Spirteaceous plants, Linnseus' eleven species of 

 "Spira'ci'' represent seven distinct genera. Four of tliese 

 genera, Aruncus (under the name of Barhaca}wa), Filipcn- 

 <^iila, Spinea and Ulmaria. were pre-Linn?ean and had 

 received the important sanction of Tournefort. The fifth was 

 tlie Gillenia of Moench, proposed in 1S02 ; its type the Sinrau 

 irifoUaia oi Linnmus. I believe the next subtraction of this 

 kind was made by Lindley who iu 1830, apparently simul- 

 taneously in the Botanical Eegister and in the Introduction 

 to the Natural System, insisted that the Linn;ean SjJtrcpa 

 ^orlifolia was thoroughly sni generis, and proposed for it 



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