554 



PAPAVEKACEAE 



Note on Variability. Platystemon calif ornieus is a plant of fairly uniform habit and 

 fairly uniform vegetative characters. Its stems, mode of branching and its leaves are essen- 

 tially constant, although individuals vary in amount of hairiness. Its flowers are nearly 

 uniform in size and shape, and reasonably constant in size, shape and number of the parts 

 in the calyx and corolla circles;. The audroecium sometimes exhibits marked variability, but 

 of the two inner circles of the flower, variation affects more strongly the gynoecium. Varia- 

 tions in the carpellary circle frequently become strikingly pronounced and highly eccentric 

 and irregular in character. The carpels are indeed highly variable in the degree to which they 

 become moniliform in fruit and this fact is undoubtedly correlated with fertilization of the 

 ovules. Under normal fertilization the carpels become strongly moniliform (Fig. 112c), the 

 beads indicating the position of the seeds. On the other hand torulose carpels are commonly 

 without seeds or sometimes with one or two (Fig. H2d). In some cases a mature carpel con- 

 tains one or two distinct beads each with a seed at its center, while the remainder of the 

 carpel is beadless, dissection showing that the beadless portion is vacant and seedless. It 



seems evident that moniliform car- 

 pels are those which have developed 

 seeds, and torulose (or cylindric) 

 carpels those which have failed or 

 partially failed to develop seeds. 



Greene's segregates of Platy- 

 stemon calif ornieus (Pitt. 5:158- 

 194) are 52 in number (one of 

 them a revival). The primary 

 division of his key, as well as vari- 

 ous subdivisions, rests upon char- 

 acters of the carpels, especially 

 upon the distinction "carpels toru- 

 lose" or "carpels moniliform." 

 Since moniliform carpels have been 

 shown to be those whose seeds have 

 developed, and torulose carpels 

 those whose seeds have not devel- 

 oped, the uneasy foundation of 

 these segregates is disclosed. In 

 some cases, as will be shown below, 

 both eylindrie and moniliform 

 types of carpels may be found on 

 a single individual (spms. from 



a 



Fig. 111. PLATYSTEMON CALIFORNIOTS Benth. a, habit, 

 X % ; b, flower, XI; c, d, e, stamens showing varia- 

 tion in filaments, X 4; d, circle of moniliform carpels, 

 X 1%. 



San Diego, K. Brandegee). This 

 one fact goes far to cancel most 

 of the numerous specific segregates 

 of Greene and Fedde, and much 

 other evidence tends to destroy the 

 others or cast a heavy shadow of 

 doubt upon them. 



The carpels furthermore vary 

 greatly in hairiness, a character 

 used freely for specific diagnosis in the Pittonia paper. Possibly this character is correlated 

 with sterility or fertility, just as is the moniliform or torulose character. More remarkable 

 still it may often happen that two or three circles of carpels will be produced in a single flower, 

 the circles not differing from the normal single circles of other flowers on the same plant or 

 on other plants of the same collection (Fig. 112). In other words, a single flower often bears 

 2 or 3 pluricarpellary gynoecia, each gynoecium composed of a circle of regular carpels. 



In the following attempted brief analysis of variability in this species it has been found 

 difficult to cite the segregates published in Pittonia or in the Pflanzenreich, for the reason 

 that while a single character may be repeated in a second collection, no set of characters of 

 a collection has been found wholly repeated in another collection from another locality, or 

 often indeed from the same locality. We thus have at least partial explanation of the solitary 

 citations of specimens in Fedde 's account of the genus in Engler's Pflanzenreieh, bd. 4, teil 

 104, where he recognizes 57 species. Of these, 33 are indicated by only a single collection, while 

 10 more are credited with only two collections. 



I. VARIATION IN HABIT OB IN VEGETATIVE ORGANS 



1. Tendency to nanism. Plants in sterile or clay soils tend to be smaller, less branched, 

 or commonly with the leaves in a basal tuft and the flowering stems scape-like: Crane Creek, 

 w. Tehama Co., Jepson; Ft. Seward Eidge, Jepson 1902; Kelseyville, Lake Co., Cluindler; betw. 

 Coalinga and Parkfield, K. Brandegee. 



