BOTANICAL NOTES. 249 



and in several cases as noted, none have been seen, but onr 

 ordinary perennial form and the one described as E. leptan- 

 dra have been more fully studied. In these forms as well as 

 in the other perennial ones, bifid cotyledons are certainly 

 the rule. It may be that the cleft cotyledons are the seed 

 expression of luxuriant growth, for in the smaller annual 

 forms they vary from entire to various degrees of lobing, 

 in apparent accordance with such a theory. 



Whether the forms of Eschscholtzia are perennial or an- 

 nual, seems to depend upon the amount of heat and moist- 

 ure. As a rule, the middle coast, and the northern ones 

 are perennial. Those of the southern coast and of 

 the interior are mostly annual. The island variations have 

 not been sufficiently observed, but are probably dependent 

 upon similar causes. In the foothills of the Sierra ISevada. 

 the stoutest of all our perennial forms grows about small 

 streams and in springy places, while the slender annual 

 var. tenuifolia is found on the dry ground not far away. 



E. glauca matches very well one of the common forms 

 about San Francisco. It is often hardly glaucous at all, 

 and, as Mr. Brandegee observed on Santa Cruz Island, is 

 frequently of a reddish hue throughout. 



E. maritima is the most scabrous of all the forms, though 

 the pubescence is short. Its calyptra, in luxuriant cultiva- 

 tion sometimes becomes foliaceous at the tip. The peculiar 

 whiteness of the foliage is partly pruinose, partly the effect 

 of the irregular elevations of the epidermis. 



E. leptandra is as strongly perennial as E, Ccdi/ornica, of 

 the coast. It is not "strictly erect," is either green or 

 glaucous, and varies much in dissection of foliage. The 

 seeds are either ash-gray or brown, and many of them have 

 strap-shaped reticulations similar to, but shorter than those 

 of E. tt-nuifolia. The author of the species says that it is 

 found in " desert plains near Verdi, in the western part of 

 Nevada," a somewhat peculiar habitat for a jDerennial form, 

 until it is explained that the locality is in the canon of the 



