346 Prain. — A Review of the genera 
fields of growing grain. At the same time some of the specimens at Kew which 
accord well with M. crassifolia have been so named by competent Californian 
botanists ; others, however, have been named M. heterophylla , with which they do 
not so well agree. The writer is, therefore, led to suspect that within what must 
in the herbarium be treated as M. crassifolia there may be two forms or conditions 
recognizable in the field, and that the true M. heterophylla is either a further segregate 
from one of these forms or is not accounted for in recent Californian botanical 
literature. This last possibility is suggested by the remark made by Greene in 1891 
that he had been unable to find in California a plant with capsules like those figured 
by Hooker (Ic. Plant., t. 732). Yet this figure represents very accurately a plant 
from California which the writer agrees with Sir W. Hooker in referring to the true 
M. heterophylla, Benth. Under the circumstances all that it is possible to do 
is to give, as has been done above, the salient characters of Bentham’s two plants 
and to leave them for the moment as Bentham left them. The true relationship 
of the two must be settled in the field, and a final decision can only be come to 
by our colleagues in California. It may, however, be observed that while Greene 
has decided that there are two species, Jepson has considered Greene's two species 
as no more than varieties of one, and Rattan has concluded that there is but 
one Californian Meconopsis. Sir J. Hooker, after examining the material at Kew, 
which includes Bentham’s types of M. heterophylla and of M. crassifolia , has 
expressed the same opinion as Rattan, and the writer is personally inclined to adopt 
the view of Rattan and Hooker. Indeed, if one could judge from herbarium 
specimens only, the natural conclusion would seem to be that in Bentham’s M. crassi- 
folia we see the normal state of this solitary species, whereas in M. heterophylla 
we have an agrestal condition of the same plant with quickly disappearing radical 
leaves, elongated internodes, a weak, slender, often straggling, stem and smaller 
flowers and fruits, owing to the plant having been ‘ drawn up ' among tall grass 
or grain. This conclusion is, however, partially traversed by the experience of 
Greene and Jepson as recorded in their respective works and by the experience 
of various collectors as recorded in their field-notes. 
One difficulty in connexion with the settlement of the question is that there are 
no ripe capsules on the original specimens on which Bentham based M. heterophylla 
and M. crassifolia. The drawing of the fruit of the former plant (PI. XXIV, Fig. 9) 
is taken from a specimen identified by Sir W. Hooker with M. heterophylla , Benth. 
There is hardly room for doubt that this identification is correct. The drawing 
of the fruit of the latter (PI. XXIV, Fig. to) is from a specimen collected by 
C. F. Baker, and identified by Greene with Bentham’s M. crassifolia ; here again 
the identification seems certainly accurate. 
In European gardens, so far as can be ascertained, only one species of Meconopsis 
from California can be recognized. 
If 3. Aculeatae , Prain, Journ. As. Soc. Beng., lxiv. 2. 313 (1895). 
Armatae ; saepius monocarpicae aliquando tamen perennantes ; c&ules 
saepissime evoluti simplices scapiformes raro o ; flores coerulei petalis nunc 
4, nunc 5-8 ; styli distincti ; capsula echinata sensim in stylum attenuata. 
