1907] Hall. Compositae of Southern California. 73 



1894, are similar except that the inflorescence is less leafy and the 

 glomerules of somewhat smaller sessile heads are sometimes on 

 peduncles 1 cm. long. The variety as described is much like var. 

 rigida save in the inflorescence and upper leaves. 



Var. Pacifica Hall, var. nov. Plant stout, erect, 6 dm. or 

 more high : tomentum floccose, deciduous from the branchlets and 

 involucres at time of flowering, the inflorescence then conspicu- 

 ously glandular and viscid: cauline leaves narrowly lanceolate, 

 acute, entire or few-toothed, mostly 3 to 5 cm. long and 8 mm. or 

 less broad : heads large, numerous, in an open panicle : involucre 

 hemispheric, 10 to 12 mm. high : bracts imbricated, linear, acumi- 

 nate, greenish except at the chartaceous and strongly nerved base 

 but without distinct green tips : rays about 30, violet or purple : 

 pappus varying from nearly white to purplish brown. Pacific 

 Beach, near San Diego, summer of 1899, Purpus. The type of 

 the variety is Univ. Calif, sheet no. 31267. It was gathered on 

 slopes just back from the beach and grew in rich, loose soil along 

 a railroad embankment. Exactly the same form, except for the 

 more distinctly green-tipped involucral bracts, has been collected 

 by Mrs. Brandegee in a similar situation near Del Mar, Aug. 5, 

 1906. 



20. PSILACTIS Gray. 



Ours a leafy-stemmed desert annual. Heads rather small, 

 solitary or loosely racemose, heterogamous. Involucre hemis- 

 pheric; its bracts unequal, closely imbricated in 2 or 3 series. 

 Ray-flowers pistillate, often infertile. Disk-flowers perfect, fer- 

 ti]?. Achenes compressed, pubescent. Pappus of ray-flowers 

 none or an obscure ring, of disk-flowers a row of slender bristles. 



1. P. Coulter! Gray, PL Fendl. 71 (1849). 



Loosely branched throughout, 2 or 3 dm. high : herbage rough- 

 pubescent and glandular (varying to glabrous, ace. to Gray) : 

 leaves lanceolate or narrowly oblong (the lower tapering to a 

 petiole, the upper closely sessile and appressed), coarsely and 

 sharply toothed or pinnatifid, 1 to 3 cm. long, 2 to 6 mm. broad, 

 those of the branchlets much reduced and rarely entire : involucre 

 about 4 mm. high; bracts oblong, very acute, green and herba- 



