Jfo.1.] GRAY AM" HOOKEB ON THE BOCKT MOUNTAIN FLORA. 20 



Menispbbmaceje. — Of three genera and as many species in tin 

 Atlantic flora; are equally wanting westward. 



Berberedaoe^:. — This is a marked family in North America. The 

 amphiga?an genus Berberie has genuine Atlantic and one (southern) 

 Rocky Mountain species ; the western mountains have a characteristic 

 and common low Mahonia (and another on the southern border); and 

 there are two or three more on the Pacific side. Of herbaceous types 

 the whole central region lias none: the Pacific coast has Vanoouveria and 

 Achh/s. peculiar genera of single species; the Atlantic has those foui 

 al genera, Caulophyllum, DiphyUeia, Jeffersonia, and Podophyllum 

 peculiar to it and to Northeastern Asia, of single species to each conti- 

 nent. 



NYMni.i-.Aci'.-i':. — Of the typical genera, Nymphcea is represented only 

 in the Atlantic flora and by two peculiar species (with others in Florida 

 and Texas], and Hfuphar by three species; a peculiar Nuphar belongs to 

 the two western floras. XcJionbiuw has only an Atlantic species, which 

 even reaches to the West Indies. Brasenia, that genus and single spe- 

 of wonderful distribution, is common on the eastern and not very 

 rare on the western coast. Cabomba is peculiarly Atlantic. 



SabrACENIA< -v.a:. — This wholly American order of Pitcher-plants has 

 its leading genus of six species conlined to the Atlantic border; a single 

 curious representative, ItarUiu/toiiia, on the mountains of California; 

 the third genus is on a mountain in Guiana. 



PapavekacEuE. — This small order, the typical genus of which is rep- 

 resented in America only by an arctic-alpine species, has its largest and 

 most remarkable generic diversification in Xorth America, and in the 

 belt of country now under observation, partly on the Atlantic yet more 

 strikingly on the Pacific side. But, except for an Argemone which is 

 very conspicuous over the great plains, and the alpine Papaver, spar- 

 ingly met with on the highest peaks, the order is absent from the Rocky 

 Mountain tlora in general. No European type is indigenous to Eastern 

 Xorth America, and only one of the American is Japano-Asiatic, viz, 

 stylophorui/i. of course on the Atlantic side. The other Atlantic genus 

 is Sanguinaria, which has no fellow. But California has a species of the 

 European genus Meconopsis and the following endemic genera: Romneya 

 of Southern California, with a large poppy-like flower; Arctomecon. 

 poppy-like, except in its stigmas and the anomaly of persistent petals; 

 Canbya, a curious little plant with the same anomaly (the last two really 

 belonging to the Arizonian border of the interior desert region, although 

 within California) : Platystigma, including Meconella; Ptatyrfemon, with 

 gynaecium singularly separating into n> constituent carpels, bo as to 

 simulate a Banunculaceous plant ; Den* It, a shrub in an Otherwise 



herbaceous family; and Esehscholtzia^ the only genua which extends 

 into the Great Basin, and the singular characters of which are familai 

 from the forms in common cultivation; add Hunnemannia from tin 

 Northern Mexican plateau. >• the Sequoias, perhaps, these Papa- 



veraceae form the most chara note of the Californian flora. 



