12 Contributions from the Gray Herbarium 
Long’s Peak, Aug. 29, 1914, F. W. Hunnewell, 2nd. Nevapa: East 
Humboldt Mts., Aug. 1868, Watson, no. 842. WasHINGTON: Cas- 
cade Mts., 1889, Vasey, no. 402 (Nat. Herb.). 
This somewhat variable species is the most common Mertensia 
of the intermountain region. Dr. Gray, in the Syn. FI. ii. pt. 1, 200 
(1886), referred it to M. siberica (L.) G. Don, but the identity of 
that species is very obscure. Then there are other nearly related 
species, the identity of which must be established before it will be 
possible to state, with any degree of certainty, the relationship of 
our Mertensias to those of Siberia. Although the Siberian material 
which I have been able to examine has been very meager it has not 
suggested that our species will utimately prove identical with the 
Asiatic. Accordingly I have followed nearly all recent American 
botanists in excluding M. siberica from the United States. 
The disposition of M. denticulata (Lehm.) G. Don is equally per- 
plexing. Piper, Contrib. U.S. Nat. Herb. xi. 478 (1906), referred it 
doubtfully to M. platyphylla Heller and called attention to the fact 
that, according to Hooker, the type came from ‘‘ shady woods near 
the confluence of the Columbia with the sea.’’ More recently in 
Piper & Beattie’s Fl. N. W. Coast, 301 (1915) the name M. 
denticulata is taken up for Heller’s species. It is true, if Hooker was 
not mistaken, that the type locality is almost the same as that of 
M. platyphylla Heller, but if Lehmann’s characterization is correct, 
the names must apply to different plants. For instance, ‘ foliis 
subglabris . . . radicalibus ovatis, caulinis oblongis,” and “ calyx 
brevissimus, . . . laciniis oblongis ” (1. ¢.), are characters that do 
not accord with the distinctly pubescent broadly subcordate basal, 
and broadly ovate cauline leaves and the long, linear-lanceolate 
cayx-lobes of M. platyphylla. On the contrary, if one may judge 
from the original description, it seems very probable that Dr. Gray 
was justified in considering M. denticulata the same as M. ciliata 
(i. e. M. siberica of the Syn. F1., 1. c.). The inflorescence (ex char.), 
however, is that of the variety longipedunculata, so that, on the 
adopton of the name M. denticulata, the species ciliata (in accord 
with my treatment) would become the variety. But there is still 
the possibility that M. siberica will be shown to be the same, and 
in that case, since it is an earlier name, it would supplant M. denti- 
culata. Accordingly it has not seemed advisable to substitute at 
this time either M. denticulata or M. siberica for the well-known 
