JOHNSON: A REVISION OF THE SECTION BORAPHILA 47 



Leaves 2-4 cm., narrowly ovate, dull green to purplish, glabrous or 

 nearly so, shallowly denticulate, margins sometimes irregular, contracted 

 into a slender petiole about equalling the blade. Scapes 25 cm. or shorter, 

 solitary, erect, purplish, rather copiously glandular-pubescent. Inflorescence 

 racemose or somewhat spicate, elongate to shorter; cymules contracted or 

 glomerate, apparently sessile, the lower much shorter than the elongate inter- 

 nodes ; flowers white, rather few. Bracts lanceolate, small, the lowest about 

 8 mm., purplish, equalling or exceeding the small glomerate cymules. Peren- 

 nial by a short, fibrous-rooted caudex. 



Distinctive features: purple, smooth carpels wdth widely divergent to 

 recurving beaks and the peculiar thick, smooth, flange-like gland (Plate 

 XVII). 



Distribution. — Puget Sound region. 



Specimens examined: 



Washington: Friday Harbor, April 3, 1910, Wm. Moodie. Type! Tacoma, 

 May 11, , T. C. Frye. 



Saxifraga montanensis Small, Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 23 :56 :367. 18%. 

 Saxifraga suhapetala E. Nelson, Erythea 7:169. 1899. 

 Micranthes montanensis Small, N. Am. Fl. 22:2:139. 1905. 

 Micranthes suhapetala (E. Nels.) Small, I.e. 

 Micranthes hrachypus Small, I.e. (Unverified.) 



This seems to be a good species, but it intergrades strongly with the 

 more western 6*. columbiana Piper, and 5". plantaginea Small (here included 

 under S. nidifica Greene, q.v.), while some forms that have been referred to 

 S. montanensis Small, by some authorities, closely approximate Micranthes 

 arnoglossa Small in floral characters. The species can not be distinguished 

 from E. Nelson's 5. suhapetala, but the leaves of the latter have longer 

 petioles. Other specimens are difficult to distinguish from Suksdorf's 6". 

 hracteosa (No. 1728) from the Columbia River, West Klickitat County, 

 Washington. 



Small's species is based on Mr. Frank Tweedy's No. 58, collected in 

 southwestern Montana in July, 1888. The original description is greatly at 

 variance, however, with the later one in North America Flora 22:2:139. 

 1905. It is difficult to connect the two with the same plant, and leads to the 

 suspicion that Tweedy's No. 58 is not the plant that the author in his later 

 work considers to be Micranthes montanensis. 



Distribution. — Region of Yellowstone National Park; limits of range not defi- 

 nitely known. 



Specimens examined : 



Montana: Bozeman, meadows June 14, 1905, Blankinship, No. 521 (doubtful); 

 Spanish Basin, Gallatin County, alt. 6,500 ft., June 30, 1897, Rydberg and Bessey, No. 

 4363, referred to S. montanensis by Engler and Irmscher (USNH 360877) (doubtful). 



