22 A. Gray— Germination of the genus Megarrhiza. 
— thirty) years ago proposed for them the generic name of 
garrhiza ; but he refrained from publishing it, even omitted 
ae mention of it in his account of Dr. Bigelow’s excellent col- 
lection made in Whipple’s Expedition (Pacif. R. Rep. iv, 1857), 
although good materials of that and other collections were in 
his hands, because he could not make up his mind whether he 
had to do with one variable species or with two or three. But 
in the sixth volume of the Pacif. Railroad Rep., which bears 
the same date of 1857, in Dr. Newberry’s list of plants collected 
rats Williamson’s Expedition (p. 74), two species are enumerated, 
t 
. 'Mogitroeie eae ais Torrey. Petaluma and Sonoma, 
California; April, in flower.” 
: Megarrhiza Oregana, ees On the shores of Klamath 
Lake and banks of Willamette River, O. T.; August and 
September, in fruit.’ 
Before this, however, viz: in March, 1855, Dr. Kellogg, of 
San Francisco, communicated to the California Academ my of 
Natural Sciences (Proc. Calif. Acad., i, 88), an account of one 
of these — apparently the second, under the name of 
Marah murica 
A few years aa some se a been raised in France 
from Californian seeds, M. Naudin (in Ann. Sci. Nat., ser. 4, xii, 
154, t. 9, under date of 1859, but, as the letter-press shows, 
not ‘printed until 1860 or 1861), published he plant which Dr. 
Torrey had called M. Calfornica under the name of Echinocystis 
fabacea. This extension of Tolancaiats was Padded by Ben- 
tham and Hooker in their Genera Plantarum. It was, more- 
over, sear ne by Dr. Kellogg, who, in a second communica- 
tion to th rnian Academy, under date of June 4, 1855, 
re-describes his rsa Marah muricatus, states that it “ ne 
mately belongs to Eehv inocystis,” and gives it the name of 
muricatus. When, shortly after Dr. Torrey’s death, I superin- 
tended the printing of his account of the plants collected on 
our Pacific coast in Wilkes’ Expedition, I found that he had 
left the article on this genus unwritten, and apparently had not 
determined either upon the emo of the species or upon the 
distinctness of his proposed gen 
When in the recent jepatetion of the Botany of California 
the subject came to be studied anew by Mr. Watson, with the 
aid of more extensive materials, and when these materials were 
found to exhibit such diversities that at least five species to 
be recognized (Bot. California, i, sce with notable differences 
in ovary, fruit, seeds, etc., but no approximation to the eastern 
Echinocystis, it could hardly oe doubted that Torrey’s genus 
ought to be reinstated ; and this was accordingly done 
The M. Californica had been raised in the Botanic Garden of 
Harvard University many years ago, but I had not seen the 
