BOTANICAL NOTES. 243 



coriaceous, 3-5, often 4-lobed dehiscent to the middle, not 

 to the base, excepting in age or by violence. 



C. aurea Watson, is a slender form, of which, so far as I 

 know, only early plants have been collected, though our 

 specimens show one capsule with mature seeds identical 

 with the ordinary form. 



The conditions under which the petals of some of our 

 Papaveraceae persist, are not yet at all understood, but 

 probably varying heat and moisture will account for the 

 phenomenon more or less. 



KoMNEYA CouLTERi Harv. 



The concave sepals of Romneya vary from glabrous to 

 densely spinose. The wing — a prolongation of the upper 

 portion of one margin which is overlapped by the next 

 sepal — is developed in the same manner in Platystemon, es- 

 pecially in P. Californicus and P. linearis. The styles are 

 connate, and the stigmas more or less so. In dehiscence 

 both the valves and placentae separate from the stout, per- 

 sistent ribs, which form a spiral frame enclosing the pla- 

 centae and the seeds which are for sometime involved in its 

 meshes. The seeds are angular with a prominent raphe, 

 reticulated, and covered with small scurfy tuberculations. 



Argemone L. 



Our common Californian species, already probably too 

 near A. llexicana, is brought nearer still by the one recently 

 described under the name of A. corymhosa Greene. It is a 

 somewhat depauperate form from a very dry region, and 

 only one specimen was collected. The flowers are white, 

 1-3 inches in diameter, as observed from the car windows. 

 The capsules in the solitary example are 3-4 lobed; rather 

 small; the lobes of the pale, bvit not blotched leaves are 

 very shallow, and the whole plant is prickly, in the manner 

 of A. Mexicana, to which it undoubtedly belongs. 



2d Ser. Vol. I. (17) Issued Dec. 11, 1888. 



