



NELSON— PLANT AE GOODDINGIANAE 427 





Mortonia utahensis, n. sp.— M. scabrella utahensis Coville, ex. 

 Wm. Trelease, Syn. Fl. N. A. 1:400. 1897. 



Specimens in full bloom, April 19, no. 2230, in the Muddy Range; fruiting 

 specimens May 13, no. 2369, Las Vegas Mts., both localities in southern Nevada. 



The excellent collections of this plant by Mr. Goodding in 1905 leave no 

 doubt that it ought to be considered distinct from M. scabrella Gray. Not only 

 are the leaves uniformly much larger, but the flowers are very numerous and much 

 smaller. The calyx-lobes equal and in fruit rather exceed the turbinate tube; 

 they are broadly triangular, with erose scarious margins. The petals are nearly 

 oval, with erose denticulate margins, and are narrowed abruptly to a short claw- 

 like base; they barely equal the calyx-lobes and are never more than 3 mm long. 

 The filaments are dilated downward. The leaves do not have revolute margins 

 but are fleshy-thickened, looking as if bordered w r ith cartilage. 



Condalia divaricata, n. sp. — An intricately branched rigid shrub, 

 2-4 m high; the branchlets crowded, 3-7 cm long, strongly divaricate 

 (at right angles to the stem), rigid, permanently covered with a fine 

 close tomentum which at tip shades off to flaky deciduous scales, 

 leaving the sharp brown spine free: leaves in approximate alternate 

 fascicles, mostly on the spinelike branchlets, nearly sessile, some- 

 what thick and coriaceous, the margin wholly entire, permanently 

 lanate-pubescent, oblong to oval, or sometimes narrowed toward the 

 very short petiole, mostly obtuse at apex, the venation obscure, rarely 

 more than the midrib showing, 4~8 mm long: flowers not known: 



mm 



mature fruit on very short peduncle and pedicels (each less than 2 

 long), the umbel apparently 3-flowered at most: drupe ellipsoidal, 

 purplish black, 5-7 mm long (in dry specimens), the stone moderately 

 thick-walled, completely 2-celled, with a large elliptical plano-convex 

 seed in each cell. 



Las Vegas, Nevada, in mature fruit, May 5, 1905, Goodding 2300. 



The only species to which this is closely allied is C. lycioides Weberbauer, but 

 that is a Texan species with narrower thin pale leaves conspicuously veined, and 

 with subglobose fruit. The var. canescens of this species, at least as originally 

 described (Gray, Wheeler Rept. 6:82), is a shrub only half as large, with greenish 

 branches covered with a "gray powdery substance," leaves on petioles 4-8 mra 

 long, and the spiny branchlets only 12-25™™ long. Though no specimens of 

 the variety are at hand, it seems highly improbable that it is the same as the one 

 now described. Should such prove to be true, it certainly deserves to be separated 

 from C. lycioides, as is now done. 



Mentzelia polita, n. sp.— Perennial, but probably short-lived: 



