SPECIES IN GRAY’S BOTANICAL CONTRIBUTIONS. 521 
Lewis and Clarke (1804) and opens: by Dr. James (1819), this shrub was first described, 1840, by Hooker, in his 
North American Flora, from Oregon specimens, and was doubtfully referred by him to Batis. A few years later, it 
was again described by Sais in has sit of the plants collected by the Prince of Neu Wied, as a new genus under 
the name of Sarcobatus, and very soon afterward, and without a knowledge of the publication by Nees, again by Torrey 
under that of Fremontia. It is a great pity that this last name had to give way to priority ; though at present a much 
handsomer and showy Californian shrub bears Fremont’s name, the wide-spread Greasewood of the western mountains 
and deserts would more fitly have commemorated the bold and hardy pioneer of explorers to the millions who now 
do or in time to come will know and value this plant 
The Greasewoop forms a scraggy, stunted shrub, 2 or 3 to as much as 6 or 8 feet high ; in Utah it is commonly 
3-4 feet high. The stems are scarcely ever more than 1 or 2 and rarely 3 inches thick, knotty, flattened, twisted, and 
often with irregular ridges and holes (the scars of deeayed branches) ; er — ever, many straight shoots issue 
from a single base, j—} inch thick, so straight as to be used for arrows, They are covered with a compact, smoothish 
or slightly roughened, light-gray bark. The wood is very hard and ita of eet in the core light-brownish, 
color, with very thin annual layers, in younger plants about §, in older ones }, of a line or less thick. The oldest stems 
seen showed 20-25 rather indistinet rings, and were consequently so many years old. The numerous smaller a 
have a smooth, shining, white bark, and are beset with white spines at right angles ; these spines are i 
branches of two kinds. The sharper and shorter ones are real spines, scarcely ever more than }~1 inch qs ; they 
bear leaves only, or, in the axils of these, female flowers, and are terminated by a sharp point and never by a staminate 
spike. The other spines are branchlets which did bear such a terminal spike, which, after flowering, has fallen away ; 
they are 1-2 inches long, sometimes even longer, when they are apt to bear also lateral spines. The flower-bearing 
branches are very often secondary axillary productions closely under the sterile primary branch, which constitutes the 
spine, so that the spines often appear as axillary to the flower-bearing branches. The leaves are thick and 
pulpy, linear, or often narrowed toward the base, flattened or even slightly channelled on the upper surface, and [447] 
keeled on the lower one, at least toward the base, leaving a triangular scar after falling off. They are 4-1 inch, 
rarely as much as 1} inches long, and } line, or sometimes, in the upper half, even 1 line, wide; in young and vigorous 
shoots, I have seen the leaves flatter, shahen and broader, almost lanceolate. Their surface usually is perfectly gla- 
rous ; in specimens from Carson Lake, however, I find the younger leaves covered with a rough and sometimes 
branched pubescence. The leaves are sometimes on the lower part of the branches opposite, but commonly alternating 
in 2 order. The staminate and pistillate flowers are both very imperfect, but very different in their arrangement and 
structure ; they usually occur on the same plant, though some plants seem to bear scarcely any but staminate, others 
only pistillate, flowers. The staminate flowers are crowded into a deciduous spike or ament, terminating the branches. 
This spike is, before the flowers open, 3-5 lines long and 1} lines thick, and very compact, exhibiting only the rhombic 
surfaces of the scales ; afterward it elongates to the length of 5-9 lines, showing the deciduous anthers under and 
— the separated scales. The spike consists of 25-35 peltate angular scales, pointed at the upper end, which 
over 3-5 broadly oval anthers, sessile on the rhachis, $ a long, 2-celled, opening laterally. The fertile flowers are 
ite solitary in the axils of the leaves and sessile ; in some specimens I find a secondary flower just below the 
rimary one, and sometimes even below a branch, Sloaee from the same axil; sometimes they are aggregated on 
abbreviated branchlets, forming irregular clusters. The flower consists of a tabular ealyx with an inconspicuous rim, 
investing the lower half of the ovary, which is terminated by two unequal subulate stigmas, lateral in regard to the 
stem. In the fruit, this rim is enlarged to a broad, circular, spreading wing, 3-5 lines in diameter, green or sometimes 
red, which surrounds the upper third of the fruit. The flattened vertieal seed, enclosed in the membranaceous utri- 
culus, is about 1 line in diameter, and contains a spiral embryo without an albumen, as already demonstrated and 
figured by Professor Torrey in Fremont’s Report. 
The Greasewood is found in flower from June to August. 
The form from Carson Lake seems to be distinguished not only by the pubescence of the younger parts of the 
plant, but also by its more squarrose growth, its subdiccious flowers, and its aggregated fertile flowers and fruits; but 
the Greasewood of other localities is also often subdicecious, so that when first described it was considered a truly 
dicecious plant. 
SPECIES IN GRAY’s files sii Conrriputions (PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND 
Scrences). 
Campanula leptocarpa, Engelm. in herb. (Specularia leptocarpa, Gray) and ©. intermedia, Engelm. in herb. (Specu- 
laria biflora, Gray) [1876, xi. 82}. LxesPeDEzA LEPTOsTACHYA, Engelm. in herd. [1876, xii. 57]. Vernonia Letter- 
manl, Engelm. in litt. [1880, xvi. 78]. 
66 
