PINK FAMILY 



509 



plants of San Luis Obispo Co. and of the southern coast stations as far as the Santa Ana 

 Mts. There is a plant from Mt. Wilson (Davidson) which is remarkably canescent but too 

 little known. A specimen from the summit of Mt. San Antonio, Surr, is more glandular than 

 typical plants but strikingly like them. The remaining material before us, of the high ranges 

 and mostly away from the coast, is very different in aspect from the type, but careful dis- 

 sections and comparison of field notes fail to give any constant characters for specific separ- 

 ation, a dilemma which previously confronted Bobinson (in Gray, Syn. Fl. I 1 : 221). While 

 it is thus confessedly difficult to locate a definite break in the series, the differences in habit 

 seem, however, somewhat related to the geographical distribution and the montane material is 

 here taken as constituting a form of varietal status: 



Wft* V&pW 



a 



Fig. 104. a, SILENE VERECUNDA Wats., petal, ft, var. PLATYOTA Jepson, flower; 

 c, petal, d, SILENE GRANDIS Eastw., flower, x 2. 



Var. platyota Jepson n. comb. (Fig. 104 b, c.) Stems slender, branching 

 above and forming a mostly open panicle with scattered flowers on long 

 pedicels or sometimes in 3-flowered short-peduncled clusters; basal leaves 

 oblong- to linear-oblanceolate, narrowed at base to a margined petiole, I 1 /? 

 to 4 inches long; calyx lightly pubescent; petals pink, purple, or (?) greenish 

 white, very narrow; scales mostly lanceolate or linear; auricles rounded or 

 acute. High montane, 5000 to 9000 feet, mountains of Southern California 

 to the southern Sierra Nevada. 



Locs. Cuyamaca Mts., ace. Watson; Mt. San Jacinto, Jepson 2313; Seven Oaks, San 

 Bernardino Mts., Parish 3728; Lytle Creek Canon, San Gabriel Mts., Hall 1242; Mt. Gleason, 

 Barber 257; Pahute Peak, Purpus 5309; Collins Mdw., Fresno Co., Hall $ Chandler 458. 



Eefs. SILENE VERECUNDA Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 10: 344 (1875), type loc. rocky hills 

 near Mission Dolores, San Francisco, Bolander 352; Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 165 (1901). 

 S. luisana Wats. 1. c. 23: 261 (1888), type spms. from San Luis Obispo, Lemmon, and Jolon, 

 T. Brandegee; a synonym ace. Eobinson in Gray, Syn. Fl. I 1 : 221. Var. PLATYOTA Jepson. 

 S. platyota Wats. 1. c. 17: 366 (1882), type spms. from Cuyamaca, San Jacinto and San 

 Bernardino mountains. 



18. S. grandis Eastw. (Fig. 104d.) Stems % to 2 feet high, very stout, 

 strongly thickened at the nodes, unbranched, densely leafy, bearing peduncled 

 or subsessile clusters of flowers in the axils of the somewhat reduced upper 

 leaves; stem leaves roundish-ovate, shortly acute, 1 to 2 or 3 inches long, 

 sessile or drawn down to a margined petiole, the pairs connate-clasping by a 

 broad base; basal leaves similar but long-petioled ; calyx oblong-campanulate, 

 5 to 7 lines long, scarious between the green nerves, which are densely hairy or 

 velvety, its teeth roundish, scarious margined; petal blades unequally 4-cleft, 

 the two middle ones longer, truncate, toothed or shortly cleft, the lateral 

 very small, lanceolate, strongly divergent ; scales quadratish, truncate, toothed ; 

 claws glabrous; auricles narrow, rounded; capsule oblong, stipitate, slightly 

 exceeding calyx. 



