THE GENUS BIPLACUS- 155 



type of this species is norclienij ranging from perliaps Monte- 

 rey to southern Oregon ; most plentiful toward the coast, 

 but common in the interior, on both sides of the Sacramento 

 valley. I refer to it with misgiving two other plants as 

 varieties. 



Var. STELLATUS. Diplacns stellatus, Kell. Proc. Calif, 

 Acad. 1. c. Greene, Bull. Calif. Acad. 1. c. Shortly after 

 having proposed the restoration of this species on the score 

 of its accredited stellate pubescence, I collected it anew, and 

 seemed to find that the stellate hairs on my own specimens 

 as well as on those obtained by Br. Veateh— hairs so ex- 

 tremely unlike whut are found elsewhere in the genns, had 

 been derived by accident, from an extraneous source. They 

 are, I think, those of a SpJueraJcca which grows on Cedros 

 Island along with the Diplncus. A dendroid tomentum 

 quite as dense as what is found on the far-southern shrub, 

 occurs on others from Calaveras Co. in middle California. 

 But the leaves of stellatus are broader and more inclined to 

 the ovate, than in any mainland form, besides being of much 

 firmer texture ; and the flowers are smaller. These consider- 

 ations, taken in connection with the remote insular habitat, 

 may with some suffice to establish the shrub in specific rank, 

 But I am not overconfident that the very pubescent D. fjhdi- 

 nosu<^. of the interior may not be found to run far southward 

 even to the peninsular mountains over against Cedros. The 

 vast stretches of Californian mountain territory not yet at all 

 explored, leave room for many facts to be discovered in the 

 future. 



Var. LATIFOLIDS. Diplacus latlfoJius, Nutt. 1. c. ? Greene, 

 h c. I know no more of this than was known five years ago. 

 The leaves of the plant, and its pubescence, are as in true 

 Uhitinosns; but the corolla is certainly of another cut; 

 though from the herbarium specimens— and these are scant, 

 I could not attempt to describe it, further than to say, that 

 the lobes seem almost obsolete, and the apparently rounded 

 Hmb erose-dentate. 



