NEW AND NOTEWORTHY PLANTS FROM 
SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO 
EDWIN PAYSON 
During the summer of 1913 and the spring and summer of 1914 
it was the writer’s privilege to make a collection of the plants of 
western Montrose County, from the Uncompahgre Plateau on the 
east to the La Sal Mountains of eastern Utah on the west. Of all 
parts of the state, the southwestern portion is the least known 
botanically and may therefore be expected to furnish novelties 
to the systematist for many years to come. This is especially 
true of the spring flora of the arid or so-called ‘‘ Upper Sonoran” 
life-zone. The reason for this is obvious when one considers that 
most of the collections have been made upon the summer flora, 
and that by the middle of June most of the vegetation of the arid © 
district has withered and even the seeds have scattered. Though 
the collections of 1913 and 1914 were made upon the montane 
as well as the desert flora, most of the interesting forms were dis- 
covered at the lower altitudes. The undescribed species, those 
that had not previously been reported from the state or had been 
omitted from recent manuals of the district, as well as some per- 
plexing forms, are treated in this paper. A complete set of these 
plants, containing the types of the species and varieties character- 
ized, is deposited in the Rocky Mountain Herbarium. 
CALOcHORTUS FLEXUOSUS Wats.—This lovely and interesting 
mariposa lily, which has heretofore been known only from farther 
south and west and has not generally been credited to Colorado, 
was collected in bloom near Naturita on May 12 and May 26, 
on a red clay hillside over which it was growing in great profusion. 
The stems were stiff and flexuous and showed no inclination to 
become prostrate or twining. The flowers have been described as 
“purple” or “purplish,” but as a matter of fact they are at first 
white and later become a very delicate pink; it is only in withering 
that they become “purplish.” Nos. 289 and 357. 
Botanical Gazette, vol. 60] [374 
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