1886. ] BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 231 
of our pleasure in the excursion so admirably planned and so 
happily executed. 
As the Botanical Club of the Association has never before 
been so well attended, so also has it never before been so ospi- 
tably cared for and so happily entertained as at Buffalo. What 
more can they do for it in 1896? 
Essay toward a revision of Dodecatheon.* 
ASA GRAY. 
Probably every botanist who has turned his attention to this 
genus has suspected it to be of more than one species. But those 
who have attempted to deal with the numerous now extant forms 
have been baffled in their endeavors to distinguish and define 
them. In the Synoptical Flora of North America I could do no 
better than to arrange the forms loosely under seven varieties. 
f I have now done better in the attempted discrimination of five 
species the credit is largely due to indications and specimens sup- 
plied to me by two western correspondents, Mr. Suksdorf, of 
Washington Territory, and Prof. L. F. Henderson, of. Oregon, 
to the latter especially in pointing out to me the anomalous char- 
acter of the form which I have accordingly designated by his 
na 
me. 
If the assigned characters hold out it will be in good part by 
their fruits that we shall know them; and fruit is rare in our 
specimens, so that many of them can only be guessed at, and the 
value of the present scheme is still to be tested. But present 
indications point to five species, the principal characters of which 
are exhibited in the subjoined 
CLavis DoDECATHEORUM. 
A. Short filaments manifest, being inserted at the very orifice of the short 
corolla-tube, and distinctly monadelphous: leaves with tapering 
1. Capsule acute, coriaceous, opening at apex by valves: 
Eastern. D. MEADIA. 
2. Capsule obtuse, coriaceous, opening at or from the apex 
by valves: Western. 
Leaves from narrowly or elongated to obovate-spatu- 
late: capsule oblong to cylindraceous, usually much 
D, JEFFREYI. 
surpassing the calyx. 
Leaves obovate or oval with cuneate base, 
sule globular, hardly surpassing the calyx. 
Buffalo meeting. 1886. 
short: cap- 
D. ELLIPTICUM. 
* Read before the Botanical Club of the A. A. A. S., 
