SHORT ARTICLES. 143 
Linn., was discovered near Upper Lake in the same region 
and at the same date as the preceding. This is the first note 
of its introduction on this coast. Veronica agrestis, Linn., is 
occasional in orchards near Vacaville as an escape from gar- 
dens. Mentha viridis, Linn., is plentiful in Scott Valley, 
Lake County, and in Napa Valley. It is common in many 
portions of the State. Nepeta Cataria, Linn., is abundant 
along streams in Lake County and also about dwellings in the 
mountains of the same region. W. L. JEPSON. 
Hasirar oF Carpuus EDULIS.—There are writers at the 
East who handle quite too lightly the names of western plants. 
In the May issue of Meehan’s Monthly, for example, the 
editor speaking of an edible thistle occurring in the Rocky 
Mountains of Colorado, says Dr. Gray named it Cnicus edulis; 
and the same statement was reiterated in Garden and Forest 
a week or two later. There is no thistle either in Colorado 
or within seven or eight hundred miles of there which Dr. 
Gray or any other botanist ever called by the specific name 
edulis. Doubtless many wild thistle are edible; but Carduus 
edulis has never been found in any part of the Rocky Moun- 
tain region; and a glance at the nomenclature of species of 
thistle in the Synoptical Flora would have shown to either of 
our eastern colleagues that Cardwus edulis belongs exclu- 
sively to the Pacific Coast not far inland. 
Epw. L. GREENE. 
Anoruer Bap Gurss at A Namz.—In last December’s issue 
of his Monthly, Mr. Meehan attempts to give to a New Mex- 
ican correspondent the botanical name of a plant well known 
in that region for its use in the process of tanning leather. 
He ventures to guess that it is a certain chestnut tree, native 
of California, which is named Castanea chrysophylla. This 
tree not only does not grow in New Mexico, but will not be 
found within more than a thousand miles of that territory; 
and the tanning plant, of which Mr. Meehan’s correspondent 
enquires the name, is simply a wild species of dock, namely 
Rumex hymenosepalus. Our friend in Philadelphia 1s well 
