REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS. 71 
Survey collection, and also distributed by myself, from 
Siskiyou Co., in 1876, I have long looked upon as probably 
distinct from M. minimus, but could not seem to find any 
weightier character than that of the long scapes and short 
spikes. I doubt if Dr. Huth has ever seen this plant; and 
I am almost certain that, in spite of its numerous and greatly 
elongated scapes, it is specifically identical with his M. 
breviscapus. The achenes are the same, and furthermore, 
the State Survey, n. 1193, is from the Livermore Valley, just 
the region whence I brought the smaller plant with short 
scapes, on which Dr. Huth founds his M. breviscapus var. 
Californicus. But perhaps all these plants were, by Dr. 
Gray, included in his M. apetalus var. lepturus. 
That the author of this Revision is misled as to the impor- 
tance of the length of scapes in this genus, I infer from other 
circumstances. For example: he has referred my M. minimus 
var. apus, to Watson’s M. sessilis. Both have sessile or sub- 
sessile spikes, and are in this respect alike, while in the more 
important matters of the form and the length of the spikes 
themselves there is much difference. In Watson’s species 
they are short and conical. In my plant they are long and 
cylindrical. Under the typical species of the genus Dr. Huth 
distinguishes four varieties, the most pronounced of which is 
our M. minimus var. filiformis, which Dr. Gray was disposed 
to consider specifically distinct. Had we seen only the best of 
the specimens, at least apart from the less typical ones, we 
should have taken such a view ourselves, at the outset. But, 
along with these, growing on the same square rod of moist 
ground at the summit of Guadalupe, we found plants so much 
like genuine M. minimus, besides plenty of intermediate 
forms, that we can never cease to regard the most extremely 
attenuate and delicate specimens as representing a mere 
variety of the old type. 
The Australian variety, named australis, to the casual view 
looks quite like genuine M. minimus; but a glance at the 
fruit, with the help of a good lens, reveals such a broad 
and quite sharply rhombic outline to the back of the achene, 
