374 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



It seems to me, however, that Parish is right when he says : "It 

 would be possible, although in my opinion undesirable, to regard 

 all the Washingtonias as varieties of a single polymorphous species, 

 but the one now under consideration (viz., W. gracilis) would of 

 all be the least capable of such comprehension. Without question 

 floral characters are of greater diagnostic value than those drawn 

 from foliage or habit ; but when the latter are of marked distinc- 

 tion, and apparently constant, they cannot be refused great 

 weight." ' 



Habitat. — Probably indigenous in northern Lower California 

 (Parish). 



(Parish's description is taken from cultivated trees growing in 

 San Bernardino and Riverside California.) 



WASHINGTONIA SONORJE, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad. XXIV 

 <1889) 79 ; XXV (1890), 136 ; Parish in Bot. Gaz., vol. 44 (1907), 422. 



Washingtonia sonora, Hort. in Webbia II (1907), 198. 



Names. — Palma Blanca, Pahna Colorada, Palma Nigra (in the 

 Cape region of California). 



Description. — Stem about 25 feet high, 1 foot in diameter. 

 Leaves glaucous, filiferous, 3-4 feet in diameter, borne on compa- 

 ratively slender petioles beset on the margins with variously 

 curved spines, connected by a web of floccose hairs. The spadix is 

 shorter, more slender, and more sparingly branched, and the 

 perianth is thinner and more scarious than those of W. fiUfera. 



This species is still very imperfectly known. Parish says that 

 it is easily separable from the others by the obtuse juncture of the 

 petiole with the blade. The leaves of the young plants he was 

 able to examine were very abundantly filiferous. 



Beccari had not had an opportunity of examining flowers of W, 

 sonorce, and he regards it as a doubtful species, which may be a 

 variety of W. rohusta, suspecting that the obtusely triangular 

 insertion of the petiole in the leaf blade may not prove a con- 

 stant character. 



1 Parish, S. B., The Flowers of Washingtonia, in Bot. Gaz., vol. 46 (1908), 145. 



