JOHNSON: A REVISION OF THE SECTION BORAPHILA 49 



prominent longitudinal ridges of inconspicuous tuberculate teeth, or nearly 

 smooth or striate. Leaves 2-10 cm., lanceolate to oblong or ovate, varying 

 considerably, mostly glabrous, margins ciliolate and obsoletely denticulate to 

 sinuate or rarely dentate. Scapes about 45 cm. high and less, stout, erect, 

 finely glandular-pubescent, more copiously so above, branched near the top 

 or occasionally with one or two long slender branches arising from below 

 the middle. Inflorescence paniculate-cymose, compact and spicate in some 

 forms to open and branched below ; upper cymules mostly sessile or nearly 

 so, glomerate. Perennial from a short, stout caudex; sometimes a cluster 

 of reddish bulblets at the base of the scape. 



Greene's (11) original specimens of S. nidifica have not been available, 

 but his description of it (I.e.) indicates that it is identical with S. planta- 

 ginea Small and 5*. columbiana Piper. The mass of bulblets noted by Greene 

 at the base of the scape in his plants is also to be found in the specimens of 

 S. plantaginea from Spokane, and in plants from Idaho and Montana. 

 Small (27) separates S. nidifica from S. plantaginea by its "arachnoid" as 

 well as glandular pubescence, while the latter is regarded as being merely 

 glandular-pubescent, a distinction which does not hold since both kinds of 

 hairs occur in specimens of 6". plantaginea from Montana and Idaho. 



More or less confusion has also prevailed as to the distinctions between 

 S. plantaginea and S. columbiana. S. plantaginea is based on Sandberg and 

 Leiberg's collection of May, 1893, from Spokane, Washington. The species 

 is distinguished, according to Small, by its "broad greenish petals which 

 are exceeded by the calyx." Later Piper (22, p. 393) based a new species, 

 .S". columbiana, on specimens from the same region, which he differentiated 

 from S. plantaginea Small on size, and on the characters of the petals, the 

 latter, he writes, being "a larger plant in every way," with "white, elliptic 

 or oblong, 1 -nerved" petals. Comparing the cotypes and other authentic 

 specimens it is found that Piper's own collection of S. columbiana, namely 

 No. 1808, from Pullman, Washington, is a larger plant than any of the 

 specimens of 5. plantaginea. Small ; at the same time other collections, iden- 

 tical with Piper's No. 1808, from adjacent localities in Idaho and western 

 Montana, show the same characteristics as to size (Heller No. 3037, Lewis- 

 ton, Idaho; Sandberg, Kootenai County, Idaho, July, 1887; Williams No. 

 401, Columbia Falls, Montana). Another specimen collected by Piper at 

 Pullman, Washington, May 24, 1894 (without number) and identical with 

 his No. 1808, can not be distinguished from the cotype of S. plantaginea 

 (namely that of Sandberg and Leiberg, Spokane, Washington, May, 1893). 

 A detailed examination of a great deal of material of the two species shows 

 the petals to be extremely variable and therefore wholly unreliable as specific 

 characters (Plate XV). 



