NEW OR NOTEWORTHY SPECIES. 231 



letti. Tills seems to be no more than a variety of F, recur ca; 

 bat its habitat is far to the southward of the recorded range 

 of the species. 



rLiGiOBOTHRYS Californicus, P. rufesccns, Gray, Proc. 

 Am. Acad. xx. 232, not of Fisch. & Mey. Seklora less than 

 1 foot, often 2, not rarely 2| ft. high, with an erect main 

 stem and several long decumbent trailing branches, all from 

 a tuft of radical spatulate-oblanceolate leaves: spikes a foot 

 or two in length, very lax (the fruiting calyces an inch apart); 

 calyx cleft almost to the base, the segments persistent; nut- 



lets 1| lines long, nearly a line broad in the middle, abruptly 

 stout-beaked, the nearly orbicular body sharply carinate and 

 laterally crested, with or without sharp transverse rugosities 

 and intervening niuriculations. 



Very common in the interior of California, from Los Angeles 

 to the borders of Oregon, on the open plains, and among 

 the lower foothills; abundant about Autioch, Vacaville, etc.; 

 apparently first collected by Mr. Howell, near the Oregon 

 line, many years ago. It was the discovery of this species 

 Avhicli led to the restoration of the two genera Flaghbolhrys 

 and Crijpfanfhe, which American authority had unwarrant- 

 ably merged in Eritrichium; and Dr. Gray, without knowl- 

 edge of the mature fruit of the Chilian plant, assumed this to 



if, 



He 



admitted, however, at the place I have cited, that the South 

 American plant was not credited with that sharp keel of the 

 nutlet which is so conspicuous in ours. My mature speci- 

 mens of the plant of Soutii America show that this keel is 

 wanting in the true P. rufescens. And in that species the 

 nutlet is much smaller (as is, indeed, the whole plant), and 

 favose-reticulate rather than transversely rugose with parallel 

 ridges. With fair specimens in hand it is impossible that a 

 botanist should confound the two species. 



Allocauya stricta. Slender, strictly erect and somewhat 

 succulent, simple or with several scarcely divergent spicate 



