NEW CHORIPETALOUS EXOGENS. 15 
of Mt. Hesperus in spruce woods; collected by Messrs. Baker, 
Earle and Tracy, 30 June, 1898 (n. 237). 
RANUNCULUS OCREATUS. Stems only 3 or 4 inches high, 
stoutish and succulent, solitary, from rather elongated and 
slender ascending rootstocks having few and elongated 
fibrous roots; the herbage quite glabrous: earliest foliage 
represented by one or more ample scarious stipular sheaths ; 
the lowest proper leaves only 1 or 2, with short scarious- 
stipuled petiole,and blade of suborbicular outline 3-5-parted, 
their divisions 3-lobed ; cauline leaves similar but subsessile, 
with short but broad hyaline and sparsely ciliate stipules : 
flower solitary, short-peduncled ; sepals large and spreading, 
villous-hirsute externally ; the inconspicuous petals 5, barely 
equalling the sepals: filaments short ; head of pistils elon- 
gated: achenes unknown. 
Collected by Baker, Earle and ‘Tracy on Mt. Hesperus, 
Colorado, 2 July, 1898 (n. 912). Manifestly related to R. 
Eschscholizii, yet of very different habit; remarkable for the 
great development of scarious stipules. The underground 
growth very characteristic. Possibly some specimens of this 
species in the herbarium of Dr. Gray may have given rise 
to the statement made in the Synoptical Flora about a “ com- 
monly oblique caudex or short horizontal rootstock " in R. 
Eschscholtzii. But the genuine R. Eschscholtzii I venture to 
say—and I speak from large experience of the plant in many 
and widely sundered fields—has always clustered stems aris- 
ing from a compact tuft of fibres, showing no trace of root- 
stock or caudex. 
RawuwxevLUs EARLEr Related to R. Bongardi, similarly 
perennial and with slender fibrous roots, the stoutish and 
nearly glabrous stem 1 to 2 feet high and strictly erect ; 
petioles villous, and lower face of tbe leaves sparingly so, or 
when young somewhat silky ; blade of the leaves 3—5-parted, 
the segments of obovate general outline and cut into about 
3 oblong or lanceolate lobes: pedunculiform branches few 
