1921] Smiley: Flora of the Sierra Nevada of California 325 



characters approaching the following variety) ; Angora Peak, Tahoe, 

 7,800 feet, Smiley 24; Suzy Lake trail, Tahoe, 7,300 feet, Smiley 170; 

 ridge south of Donner Pass, 7,500 feet, Heller 7144 ; Yosemite Valley, 

 Congdon, July 2, 1885 ; Nellie Lake, Fresno County, 8,700 feet, Smiley 

 609; Hockett's meadows, Tulare County, 8,500 feet, Hall and Bab- 

 cock 5611. 



4a. Pentstemon procerus f. geniculatus (Greene), comb. nov. 



P. geniculatus Greene, Pitt., vol. 3, p. 310. 1898. 

 P. cephalophorus Greene, Leaflets, vol. 1, p. 79. 1904. 

 P. chionophilus Greene, I.e., p. 161. 1906. 

 P. interruptus Greene, I.e., p. 163. 1906. 



Type locality. "Common on alpine slopes, below retreating snow- 

 banks, in wet clayey or gravelly soil in the Sierra Nevada of Califor- 

 nia." 



Range. Sierra Nevada and mountains of Oregon, perhaps coexten- 

 sive with the species. 



Zone. Hudsonian and Arctic-alpine, but appearing in the Cana- 

 dian. 



Specimens examined. Mountains west of Summit, E. L. Greene 

 in 1874 ; Castle Peak near the highest point, 9,000 feet, Heller 7095 ; 

 Pyramid Peak, Tahoe, 9,600 feet, Hall and Chandler 4725 ; Desolation 

 Valley, Tahoe, 8,500 feet, Smiley 338 ; Mt. Gibbs, Yosemite, Congdon, 

 August 16, 1894; Mt. Dana, 11,000 feet, Hall and Babcock 3617; 

 Mt. Brewer, Tulare County, grassy slopes, 10-13,000 feet, Purpus 

 1403; Summit Lake, Tulare County, Culbertson (B4551). 



This form connects with the species by numberless intermediates ; 

 in its typical form, the short slender stems bear terminal clusters of 

 small deep blue flowers. 



as to the possibility of specific definition within this assemblage. In 1898, Dr. 

 Aven Nelson defined P. Eydbergii (Bull. Torr. Bot. Club, vol. 25, p. 281) as a 

 species amply distinct; in 1902 he similarly described P. Owenii (Bot. Gaz., vol. 

 34, p. 32) ; in 1909, the Coulter-Nelson New Manual was issued and these species 

 are considered valid; but three years later (Bot. Gaz., vol. 54, pp. 145-146), the 

 author of these propositions freely acknowledges the impossibility of maintaining 

 them, consigning them to synonymy along with "a score (more or less) of Dr. 

 Greene's species," which Professor Nelson appears to think so trivial as not to 

 be worth mentioning by name. This wholesale rejection of previously accepted 

 species is justified by the reflection that "Perhaps in no group of Pentstemon does 

 a tendency to vary with every change in the ecological conditions mani'fest itself 

 so fully as in P. confertus and its allies. " It is quite probable that students 

 of the western flora will very generally approve of Dr. Nelson's disposition of 

 his species but they may regret that this recognition of the effect of the life- 

 conditions upon a plant came too late to prevent unnecessary additions to the 

 already redundant synonymy of this group of Pentstemon. 



