Pingiie, also known as Colorado rubber weed or rubberwced, is a 

 green, leafy, tufted, perennial with sunflowerlike heads. Unfor- 

 tunately, this plant has been the subject of numerous christenings 

 and goes under a variety of aliases in the manuals, including Acti- 

 nel'la richardso'ni, Ilynie.nax'ys richardso'ni, H. floribun' da, Picra- 

 de'nia ricliardso'ni, and P. fioribun'da. Furthermore, one form of 

 the plant has been considered a variety under the name H. richard- 

 so'ni floribun'da, and others as distinct species under the names 

 H. macranftha (syn Picrade'nia maomn'tha) and //. pvfmila (syn. 

 Picrade'nia pu'mila), but conservative botanists consider that the 

 variations which these names represent are too slight, inconstant, 

 and intergrading to justify specific or even varietal rank. Except 

 for the list of conserved names recognized by the International Code 

 both codes of botanical nomenclature recognize the oldest tenable 

 name as the one to be accepted. Actinea, the oldest generic name, 

 was published in 1803. Richardsoni, the oldest tenable specific 

 name > was first published under Picradenia ricJiardsoni in 1834 and, 

 since recent studies indicate that those plants formerly regarded as 

 composing the genera Hymenowys (syn. Picradenia} and "Actinella" 

 of American authors belong in the same genus, the oldest tenable 

 name for pingiie would be Actinia richardsoni. 



This plant was first collected in Saskatchewan by Dr. John Rich- 

 ardson (1787-1865) and was named Piorcaema ricJiardsoni in his 

 honor by the celebrated British botanist Sir W. J. Hooker (1785- 

 1865). Hooker refers to Dr. Richardson as a naturalist of two sepa- 

 rate expeditions to the Polar Seas, by whom a great portion of the 

 more rare and interesting plants that ornament this volume (Flora 

 Boreali Americana) were collected. This botanical classic, dedi- 

 cated by Hooker to Dr. Richardson and Sir John Franklin, was 

 published in London serially from 1829 to 1840; its tw r o volumes are 

 now considered worthy of a place among the rare books in the 

 Library of Congress. Pingiie, pronounced peeng'gway, the widely 

 established and generally used common name of this species, is a 

 Spanish word meaning oily, referring, undoubtedly, to the oily, 

 resinous leaves. However, the names rubberweed and Colorado rub- 

 berweed are also appropriate as the plant contains rubber latex 1 

 and grows abundantly over large areas in central and southern 

 Colorado. 



This perennial is distributed, chiefly on dry, sandy, or gravelly 

 soils, from Saskatchewan and Alberta to Texas, Arizona, eastern 

 California, and eastern Oregon. The species occurs from the sage- 

 brush belt upward to the spruce belt mostly in full sunlight on 

 sites where it is relatively free from competition. 



Pingiie, under normal conditions, has practically a zero palatabil- 

 ity for all classes of livestock, although under starvation conditions 

 it is grazed by sheep and goats, and to some extent by cattle, despite 



1 Cockerell, T. D. A. THE NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES OF HYMENOXYS. Bull. Torrey Bot. 

 Club 31 : 461-509, illus. 190-4. 



