NOVITIATES OCCIDENTALES. 259 
enabled me to diagnose the species; this correspondent hav- 
ing suggested that the plant does not answer to the descrip- 
tion of L. humistratus. 
Helianthemum Aldersonii. Somewhat woody at base, 
the tufted and more or less tortuous stems a yard high more 
or less, leafy below, almost naked at the panicled summit, 
both stem and leaves of a vivid green and only sparsely 
stellate-puberulent: leaves linear-lanceolate, 14 inches long 
with closely revolute narrow margin, and acute narrow midvein 
beneath: panicle 6 or 8 inches long; pedicels and calyces 
rather densely pubescent: larger sepals 3 or 4 lines long, 
abruptly pointed: petals 4 inch long: stamens about 25. 
Mountains of the southern borders of San Diego Co., Calif., 
among rocks in hard and sterile granitic soil. Collected by 
Mr. R. D. Alderson, June, 1893. 
Polygonum fusiforme. Perennial, the very stout geni- 
culate stems decumbent or assurgent, 3 to 6 feet long, dark 
red, the internodes 2} to 4 inches long and fusiform: leaves 
narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, 3 to 5 inches long, glabrous, 
minutely punctate; ochres very thin, delicately striate, 
sparsely strigose-pubescent along the lines and ciliate at 
summit: peduncles terminal, short, stoutish; bearing 5 or 
more paniculately disposed short spikes, these slender and 
few-flowered: calyx pinkish, not punctate, only ? line long, 
4-parted, compressed, the two outer lobes only half as broad 
as the two inner and cucullate, or at least strongly ventricose 
at summit: stamens 4 or 5, small, included: styles 2; achenes 
much flattened, broadly ovate, tapering abruptly to a stout 
beak-like apiculation, very dark brown, smooth and shining. 
Grown in the University Botanic Garden at Berkeley, and 
in dry ground, from a living plant sent from the moist banks 
of the Colorado, near The Needles, by Norman C. Wilson. 
The species a;very interesting one by reason of the strong 
contrast between the size of the stems and the insignificant 
minute flowers. The excessively large internodes thickened 
somewhat abruptly above the point of leaf-insertion, then 
tapering gradually to the next node above, are a most strik- 
