CERTAIN AMElRlCAN ROSfiS. 61 



seaboard, Mr. Wooton discovered in the mountains of New 

 Mexico, at elevations of 5,000 to 6,000 feet, what he regarded 

 as a second member of this strange group, and he published 

 it as Rosa stellata. There are contrasts more pronounced than 

 have hitherto been indicated between the lyower Californian 

 shrub and that of the Organ Mountains in New Mexico. 

 Let us indicate these somewhat formally. 



R. minutifolia. Young twigs with sparse and short 

 pubescence : larger spines not much dilated at base, of dull 

 color and notably pubescent : leaflets 5, not crowded, but the 

 pairs equidistant : stipules with narrow subscarious body and 

 divaricate foliaceous auricles. 



R. stellata. Young twigs with copious stellate pubes- 

 cence : spines much dilated at base, glabrous, white, polished: 

 leaflets mostly 3, crowded at end of short rachis: stipules with 

 very narrow body and ample foliaceous auricles divergent. 



The excellent specimens of R. stellata distributed by Mr. 

 Wooton are from two separate and rather well isolated 

 mountain ranges in southern New Mexico, and he has noted 

 clearly enough some of their divergences in his paper on them 

 (Bull. Torr. Club, XXV, 152). Nevertheless, I seem to see 

 that the discoverer of the New Mexican shrubs, in his diag- 

 nosis, has been betrayed by those curious trichomes of this 

 type into the making of a synthesis which, on the whole, can 

 hardly meet with general approval among students of roses. 

 In other words, the Rosa stellata of the Organ Mountains and 

 that of the Sierra Blanca are so very different in characters of 

 stem, spines, leaves and indument that, on principles well 

 established among rhodographers, they must be held specific- 

 ally distinct. No expert in the knowledge of roses, contem- 

 plating figures 3 and 6 of Mr. Wooton 's plate (Bull. Torr. 

 Club, t. 335) would say that those two leaves, if taken from 

 two plants from different regions, or even from the same hill- 

 side, are of the same species. The leaflets of one leaf are 5 

 and cuneate-obovate, notched all around the upper part from 

 the middle or even from below that. Those of the other leaf 



