326 IBIDACEAE 



2. SISYRINCHIUM L. 



Stems slender, compressed and usually 2-edged or 2-winged, often geniculate, 

 from fibrous roots, with grass-like or lanceolate leaves and fugacious relatively 

 small flowers in umbels enclosed by 2 sheathing herbaceous bracts, with a scarious 

 bractlet subtending each pedicel. Perianth 6-parted, the divisions alike, spread- 

 ing. Stamens monadelphous, their anthers alternate with the 3 style branches 

 or stigmas ; stigmas thread-like. Species 50, North America and the West Indies. 

 (Name of Theophrastus for a bulbous plant allied to Iris.) 



Stems 2-margined; perianth 4 to 7 lines long; spathe bracts generally shorter than or equal to 



the flowers. 

 Flowers blue; filaments united to the top; anthers % to % as long as the filaments; style 



entire, stigmas short 1. 8. bellum. 



Flowers yellow; filaments united only at base; anthers equal to the filaments; style deeply 



cleft 2. S. calif ornicum. 



Stems not margined but compressed; perianth 6 to 10 lines long, reddish-purple; outer spathe 

 bract commonly exceeding the flowers _ 3. S. grandiflorum. 



1. S. bellum Wats. BLUE-EYED GRASS. NIGGER-BABIES. Stems erect, simple 

 or somewhat branching, 10 to 20 inches high ; leaves shorter than the stem, 1 to 

 2^/2 lines wide ; spathes of 2 nearly equal bracts 10 to 16 lines long, enclosing 3 

 to 7 flowers; perianth purplish (or sometimes very pale) blue, yellow at base, 

 the segments oblong-obovate, conspicuously 4 to 6-nerved, 4 to 7 lines long, emar- 

 ginate at apex, with a slender tooth in the notch, the inner narrower; anthers 

 short, sagittate; style abruptly thickened or obclavate at apex (at least when 

 young), divided at tip into 3 short stigmas; capsule globose, 2 to 3 lines long. 



Moist grassy slopes, very common throughout California, rare in the deserts 

 and arid areas east of the Sierra Nevada. Mar.-May. 



Locs. Sierra Nevada: Egg Lake, Modoc Co., M. S. Baker; Honey Lake, Lassen Co., Davy 

 3302; Colby, Butte Co., JR. M. Austin 34; Tallac, C. J. Fox Jr.; Columbia, Jepson 6351; 

 Herring Creek, Tuolumne Co., A. L. Grant 82; Yosemite Valley, Sail 9213; Kern River Canon, 

 Jepson 4979. Coast Ranges: Goosenest foothills, Butler 885; Quartz Valley, Siskiyou Co., 

 Butler 1556; Comptche, Mendocino Co., Harriet Walker 290; Franz Valley grade, near Calis- 

 toga, Jepson; St. Helena, Jepson; Berkeley Hills, Jepson 9166; Mission San Jose, Jepson 2469; 

 Los Gatos, Seller 7291; Monterey, Elmer 3522. Southern California: Santa Barbara, Brewer 

 366; Monrovia Canon, Peirson 444; Pomona, Braunton 195; San Antonio Canon, Peirson 11; 

 San Bernardino, Parish; Santa Ana Canon, Hall 7606; Tauquitz Valley, San Jacinto Mts., 

 Hall 2470; San Diego, Jepson 6660. 



Refs. SISYRINCHIUM BELLUM Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 12:277 (1877), based on California 

 spms.; Bot. Cal. 2:140 (1880); Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 129 (1901). Bermudiana bella 

 Greene, Man. Bay Reg. 308 (1894). Sisyrinchium leptocaulon Bicknell, Bull. Torr. Club, 26:451 

 (1899), type loe. Lake Tahoe, J. Ball; I.e. 31:381 (1904). S. idahoense Bicknell, I.e. 26:445 

 (1899), as to California plants. S. maritimum Heller, Muhl. 1:48 (1904), type loc. Pacific 

 Grove, Heller 6538, a low or stocky form in the sand hills by the sea. S. oreophilum Bicknell, 

 I.e. 31:381 (1904), type loe. Yosemite Valley, Bioletti. S. greenei Bicknell, I.e. 31:383 (1904), 

 type loc. n. side of Mt. Shasta, H. E. Brown 351. S. eastwoodiae Bicknell, I.e. 31:385 (1904), 

 type loc. San Bernardino Valley, S. B. & W. F. Parish 663. S. hesperium Bicknell, I.e. 31:390 

 (1904), type loc. Dutard's Ranch, boundary Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo cos., Eastwood. 



Note on variation. It is possible that the species proposed by Bicknell and others lack 

 definiteness because insufficiently differentiated from extensive materials not used by them. 

 The species, S. bellum, as here accepted, has a wide geographic range and an altitudinal range 

 from 20 to 400 feet or in Southern California to 6000 feet; specimens from so wide a range 

 show certain differences in size, habit, hue and number of flowers (differences which one readily 

 associates with differences in moisture, soil or exposure) but they seem to lack technical 

 characters on which to differentiate a series of species. Field notes of flowers and collections 

 of fruiting material are, however, needed for more conclusive studies. 



The plants in the desert region east of the Sierra Nevada do not seem substantially different 

 from those of cismontane California. They grow in alkaline spots but the plants of the 

 Coast are adapted to a wide variety of soils and sometimes grow in wet semi-alkaline valleys. 

 The two climates, the desert and coast, are radically different but if it be said that the coast 

 and desert forms must represent different species because the two climates are so different 

 then the Aquilegia truncata, as it occurs in the Panamint Mts. (to mention only a single case) 

 must be made a species distinct from the Aquilegia truncata plants of the coast, which no one 

 so far has thought of doing. The facts are that the moisture conditions and the climatal 



