
1901 | NORTH AMERICAN TREES : 239 
Nuttall as Betula occidentalis, which is common in eastern Oregon 
and Washington and eastward into Montana and Idaho. I¢ the 
two forms, which seem to vary only in the thickness of the 
cones, are considered to belong to one species, this would have 
to bear Nuttall’s name of Betula rhombifolia, if Tausch four years 
before had not used that name for an European species. Some 
of the specimens of this third species bear a strong resemblance 
to a fragmentary specimen of Betula microphylla Bunge, as 
pointed out to me by Mr. M. L. Fernald, but this evidence of 
the identity of the Rocky mountain and the Altai plants would 
hardly seem to warrant the adoption of Bunge’s name for our 
tree, for which I now propose the name of Betula fontinalis. 
“ Cupressus pygmaea, n. sp. (Cupressus Goveniana var. pygmaea 
Lemmon, Handbook West-American  Cone-bearers 27. ASOR, 
Cupressus Goveniana Sargent, Silva, N. Am. 10: 107 in part (not 
Gordon). 1896.—The Cupressus of the coast region of Mendo- 
cino county, California, can be readily distinguished from the 
other North American species by its thin black seeds not more 
than % in. long which show no tendency to vary to the thick 
light red seeds of Cupressus Goveniana which are fully % in. in 
length. This character and the isolation of the region which it 
inhabits remote from that occupied by other species make it pos- 
sible and convenient to separate this northern tree from the Cupres- 
sus Goveniana of central and southern California, to which it was 
doubtfully referred by Englemann in herb. who, like myself 
when the tenth volume of Zhe Silva of North America was pub- 
lished in 1896, was unacquainted with the seeds. From Cupres- 
sus Goveniana the northern tree differs also in its rather stouter 
branchlets with deeper green never glaucous foliage, usually 
sessile often oblong cones with less prominent bosses on their 
scales which vary from six to ten in number, while the cones of 
Cupressus Goveniana are usually composed of six scales. In a 
genus like Cupressus where individuals vary greatly within cer- 
tain limits and good specific characters are so difficult to find, 
these peculiarities would hardly justify the separation of the 
northern tree from Cupressus Goveniana were it not for the 
