ie CONTRIBUTIONS KROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 



gated without the least difficulty. They are fully three times now and then 

 four times the size of those of P. aptera, but have a wing. The body has its own 

 outline, being exactly oval in /'. nucifera, whereas in /'. aptera it is, as Dr. Parry 

 Baid, •■ broadly «>\ at 



The locality of /'. nucifera is well down toward the middle of the Lower Californian 

 Peninsula, and at some distance inland, in the vicinity of a desert water hole, while 

 P. aptera is maritime, inhabiting hills that elope down to the sea, well toward the 

 northern extremity of the peninsula. 



Specimens of the fruit of P. nucifera appear to have been communicated by Mr. 

 Brandegee to I>r. Parry; for in tin- Parry Herbarium 1 find attached to the type 

 Bheet two pockets, one containing his types of the fruit of /'. aptera and so labeled; 

 the other inclosing five perfect Bamaras of /'. nucifera. This pocket is without a 

 market any kind in Dr. Parry's hand; a- if he may have entertained some doubt 

 about it- contents being referable to P. aptera. 



58. Ptelea obscura sp. nov. 



Shrub slender, probably low, the slender twigs after the first season dark-brown, 

 glabrate, closely reguloseand strongly glandular; all the growing parts, including bo£h 

 faces of tin- leaves, minutely and sparsely appreseed-pubescent; odd leaflet about .*'> 

 cm. long, narrowly rhomboid-ovate, broadest in the middle or below it. acute at 

 base, acutish at apex, lateral leaflets from less to more than half as large, inequi- 

 laterally oblong-ovate, the leaf as a whole of a light-green, the lower face lighter but 

 riot glaucescent; flower large, Bolitary, the petals oblong-obovate, Bhort-unguiculate, 

 densely puberulent with-.ut and within; filaments long, but stoutly subulate, gla- 

 brous throughout: fruit not known with certainty. 



Near Santo Tomas, lower California, May 17,1886, C R.Orcutt; type in the United 

 states National Herbarium. The locality oi this is not, like that of /'. aptera, mari- 

 time, but well inland among the peninsular hills and mountains, a fact which of 

 itself would betoken specific difference, especially on our Pacific coast anywhere, and 

 on the peninsula of lower California it would be little short of decisive. But there 

 are excellent characters of foliage upon which to establish P. obscura as a species; 

 and there is ground lor a suspicion that its fruit furnished the type of the figure of 

 so-called /'. aptera in the third volume ol Garden and Forest, as I have suggested 

 below under that 8p 



59. Ptelea aptera Parry. Proc. Davenp. Acad. 4: 39. 1884. 



Pt,l, a aptera Sargent, Gard. & Forest 3: 333. fig. 45. 1890, in part 

 shruh much branched and rigid, about 2 to 5 meter- high, all the growing parts 

 appressed-pubescent, buttwigsand branches after the first season dark-brown and 

 glabrate, rugulose and glandular-tuberculate: mature foliage unknown, the leaves at 

 early flowering small, with leaflets not very unequal, the odd one 1.5 to 2 cm. long, 

 narrow |y obovate, obtuse, crenulate, the crenatures commonly obscured by the inv- 

 olute character of the whole margin: flowers solitary, or very tew and corymbose, 

 usually pentamerous, large, the filaments glabrous: truit wingless and nut-like, 

 round-ovate or subcordate-ovate, emargmate at apex, mostly less, rarely more than 

 1 cm. long, somewhat sinuately rugulose, and conspicuously dotted with coarse 

 tubercles, depressed or flattened at summit as it pustulate when growing. 



The above diagnosis is drawn wholly from Dr. Parry's original specimens as col" 

 leeted by himself and Mr. Orcutt t r< on slope.- ol hills along the seashore at Punta 

 Banda, northern lower California, January 24, 1883. These type specimens were mads 

 available through the courtesy of Dr. Pammel, of the Iowa Agricultural College 

 at Ames, Iowa, where Dr. Parry's herbarium is now in keeping. I recall that 

 Dr. Parry, immediately after his return to San Francisco from that expedition to 

 the peninsula, reported to me the interesting discovery oi a wingless-fruited 1'telea, 



