105 
NOVITATES OCCIDENTALES.—H. 
By Epwarp L. GREENE. 
Lathyrus violaceus. Apparently glabrous, but under 
a lens sparsely short-hairy throughout: stems slender, 
shrubby below, 4 to 8 feet high, acutely angled: leaflets 
about 12, elliptical, obtuse and with slender deflexed mucro, 
the margins delicately crisped: peduncles surpassing the 
leaves, many-flowered and rather dense: flower about 8 lines 
long; lateral pair of calyx-teeth oblong-lanceolate, much 
longer than the tube, the lowest one equalling these in length 
but only half as wide, the short upper pair slightly connivent 
at tip and forming a semi-elliptical sinus; petals at first red 
purple, changing to violet blue, the banner very broadly 
obcordate, the sides only slightly recurving, the middle dis- 
playing about 10 nearly parallel veins, some of them simple, 
others forked near the summit, all running through to the 
upper margin of the organ, none running into meshes, wings 
a trifle shorter than the keel, almost. parallel with it, not 
meeting above it. 
One of the most beautiful of Californian Lathyri; and 
known only as growing in the Garden of Native Plants at 
Berkeley, from seeds that came from the mountains of 
southern California (Los Angeles Co.). Its nearest ally is a 
shrubby species of the middle sections of the State which, 
along with certain low and strictly herbaceous forms, has 
been referred to L. vestitus. But L. violaceus differs 
from all those not only in color of flowers, but in good 
characters of calyx and corolla. 
Lathyrus letiflorus. Somewhat shrubby habit of the 
preceding and as tall; the more scanty short hairs straight 
and appressed: leaflets of firmer texture, elliptic-lanceolate: 
peduneles exceeding the leaves, loosely many-flowered: 
flower about 11 lines long; lateral pair of calyx-teeth broadly 
subulate, not longer than (scarcely as long as) the tube, the 
lowest one subulate, rather longer than the tube, the very 
short upper pair connivent, the tips almost meeting, forming 
