﻿BOTANICAL GAZETTE 



(JANUARY 



Lappula subdecumbens (Parry) A. Nels. in Coulter and 

 Nelson Rocky Mountain Botany 412. 1909. — Piper, in his excel- 

 lent revision of the western perennial species of Lappula (Bull. Torr. 

 Bot. Club 29:539. 1902), wrote " Echinospermum subdecumbens 

 Parry is probably a synonym of L. diffusa.'" Others have shared 

 this view, so a few remarks calling attention to this evident error 

 may not seem inappropriate. 



Lappula diffusa (as described) has glabrous or merely papil- 

 late corolla appendages. The material from the Wasatch Moun- 

 tains, Utah, which represents the plant Parry was writing about 

 in Proc. Davenport Acad. 1:148. 1876, has softly pilose append- 

 ages. Moreover, where the species meet in Idaho they are con- 

 sistently distinct as to color, L. subdecumbens being white or merely 

 marked with blue, thus agreeing with material from the type region. 

 These are two of the characters of which Piper rightly makes so 

 much. They are strengthened in this case by an evident differ- 

 ence in habitat. L. subdecumbens, Parry tells us (loc. cit.), is 

 "quite common in gravelly debris at the outlet of ravines," and 

 Garrett in his Spring flora of the Wasatch region notes that it 

 grows on "dry plains and hillsides." L. diffusa, on the other hand, 

 is a species of streamlands and woods or thickets. In southern 

 Idaho and adjacent Nevada it is not infrequent to find the species 

 growing within a few yards of each other, the one on the dryer, 

 higher, and usually rocky places, the other on the moister and 

 richer flats or slopes. The ranges of the two are at present not 

 well enough known to be significant, but in all probability will 

 later prove interesting. L. caerulescens Rydb., with long-hirsute 

 appendages, is no doubt rightly treated by Garrett as a variety 

 of the Utah plant. It extends much farther north than the typical 

 form. 



Cryptantha muricata (Hook, and Am.), n. comb.— Myosotis 

 muricata Hook, and Am. Bot. Beechy 369. 1840; C. muriculata 

 (A.DC.) Greene, Pitt. 1:113. 1887.— DeCandolle, treating this 

 plant as an Eritrichium (Prodr. 10:132. 1846), discarded Hooker 

 and Arnott's name because of the earlier and valid E. muri- 

 catum (R. and P.) DC. The latter is now known to belong 

 to the genus Allocarya. Accordingly, the earliest name, not 



