224 Lathy rus Splendens. 



Cypraea (Luponia) spauicea Cpr., Nautilus, iv., 54, 71. The 

 Santa Barbara channel is given as the most northern station yet 

 recorded for this species. Seventy-five fine living examples are 

 reported as found in one day some 15 or 18 miles northwest of 

 Santa Barbara. Point Concepcion, forty miles north, is suggested 

 as possibly its noi-them limit. Miss Ida M. Shepard (Nautilus, July, 

 1890) records it from near Long Beach, Los Angeles county. 



Bythinella hemphilli Pilsby, Nautilus, iv. 63. Near Kentucky 

 ferry. Snake river, Washington. Allied to B. aldrichi. 



C. R. Orcutt. 



LATHYRUS SPLENDENS. 



(From Vick's Magazine, xiv. 220.) 



California has doubtless furnished a greater variety of lovely 

 wild flowers and beautiful plants that have gracefully yielded to 

 cultivation than any other State in the Union. Annually new mem- 

 bers of her floral circle win their way into our gardens and a per- 

 manent place in our affections. One of these latest introductions, 

 known for years among the simple mountain people of Southern 

 California as the ' Pride of California, has become wideh'^ recognized 

 as well worthy of the name. 



This is the deep rose-red to crimson flowered perennial pea, 

 Lathj^rus splendens, named many years ago by one of the charter 

 members of the California Academy of Sciences, Dr. Albert Kellogg, 

 whose memory is held in reverence by those who knew his pure life. 

 For many years after this handsome vine had received its name it 

 was completely lost sight of by botanists, until its very existence 

 was doubted, and in the great work on the flora of California 

 (Watson's Botany) was treated as a synonym. 



In the spring of 1882, a party of several botanists, including the 

 late Dr. C. C. Parry, started from San Diego to explore the then 

 little known peninsula of Lower California. Just below the line, in 

 a rocky canyon, we discovered this magnificent flower ornamenting 

 the evergreen bushes along the watercourse with its graceful and 

 brilliant blossoms. Dr. Parry at once shouted, it is Kellogg'sLathy- 

 rus splendens, and such it proved to be. 



Many times since have I seen it clambering over the bushes on 

 the higher table lands of Lower California, beside some perennial 

 stream, or bordering a dusty highway. In the mountains back of 

 San Diego, this j'car (1890), it was one of the few wild flowers that 

 had ' watched the old year out and the new year in.' It w^as in its 



