BOTANY. 
117 
Sarcodes sanguinea, Torr. in Smithson. Contrib. 6, p. 19, t. 10. Hill-sides, Duffield’s Ranch, 
Sierra Nevada; May 12. Fine specimens, in full flower, of this rare plant were collected by 
Dr. Bigelow. They differ from Fremont’s only in the scales being more strongly ciliate. 
PLANTAGINACEiE. (By A. Gray.) 
Plantago maritima, Linn. Corte Madera, California, within reach of the tide ; April. The 
sepals, especially the posterior ones, are strongly crested, more so perhaps than in the plant of 
the Atlantic States, which seems to pass by gradations into the northern crestless form, (P. 
juncoides, Lam ., P. pauciflora, Pursli, and P. decipiens, Barneoud.) 
Plantago Patagonica, Jacq. var. gnapiialioides. P. gnaphalioides, Nutt. Gen. 1, p. 100. 
Williams’ Fork of the Great Colorado ; February: a depauperate form. Cocomungo ; March : a 
still more diminutive and glabrate form. A widely diffused species, extending nearly the 
whole length of the continent on the western side, and with us exhibiting some remarkable 
varieties ; for to this species we must refer not only the Chilian P. Patagonica, (P. mollis, Hook. 
& Am.,) but P. Hookeriana, Fisch, & Meyer , P. gnaphalioides, Nutt., P. spinulosa, Decaisne, 
P. curta, Engelm., P. Wrightiana, Decaisne, P. Xorullensis, H.B.KJ, P. aristata, Michx., 
P. squarrosa, Nutt., and P. filiformis, Decaisne. This species is dicecio-dimorphous, some indi¬ 
viduals having small anthers on short filaments, and mostly included in the throat of the corolla, 
while others hear large anthers on long exserted filaments as in the genus generally. Both sorts 
perfect fruit, hut the former (as is usual in such cases) is the most fruitful. 
Plantago Bigelovii (sp. nov.) : pusilla, parce minutim hirsuta vel glabrata, annua ; foliis 
carnulosis lineari-filiformibus obtusis integerrimis ; spica hrevi-oblongo 3-12-flora densa ; sta- 
minibus 2; capsula ohlongo-ovoidea 3-4-sperma bractea ovata acuta calyceque longiore. 
Benicia, California; April 23. Leaves 1-2 inches long, half a line wide. Scape 2-3 inches 
high. Bracts carinate, the margins broadly scarious. Sepals broadly oval, very obtuse, 
scarious, with a green and thickened centre. Flowers twice as large as those of P. pusilla, in 
the specimens all perfect and fertile; the two stamens more or less exserted, but not so long as 
the style. Lobes of the corolla ovate, open or spreading in fruit. Capsule a line and a half 
long at maturity, when it becomes one-third longer than the calyx. Ovules 2 in each cell. 
Seeds oblong, nearly as in P. pusilla. By the latter we mean, of course, Nuttall’s P. pusilla, 
not what Decaisne has taken for it, and characterized in DeCandolle’s Prodromus. His plant, 
as also his P. perpusilla, is P. heterophylla, Nutt, in 'Irons. Amer. Phil. Soc. n. ser. 5, p. 177, 
which, although often larger and with sparingly-toothed or incised leaves, is to he distinguished 
with certainty only by its 10-28-seeded capsule, more oblong or conoidal in form, and exserted 
to twice the length of the calyx when mature. P. pusilla has only a pair of ovules and seeds 
in each cell. These three species accord in being diandrous, (a fact first noted for P. pusilla 
by Dr. Torrey in his Flora of New York, where, however, the capsule is inadvertently said to 
be two-seeded, instead of four-seeded;) but P. tenuiflora, Kit., is not so: they are also sub- 
dioecious or dicecio-dimorphous, more decidedly so than P. Patagonica, and with the corolla 
inclined to be closed in the more fertile form, but less so than in P. Virginica* and its allies. 
* It is remarkable that the direcio-dimorphous character of the wide-spread and variable P. Virginica (which includes P. 
occidentals, rhodosperma, echioides, Cumingiana? and purpurascens, (Nutt., of Decaisne) and some allied species, has not long 
before this been distinctly made out. Both subsexes have been described, indeed ; some authors indicating the one, some the 
other, some mixing up the two incongruously in their descriptions; while others, as Nuttall and Decaisne, have mistaken them 
for separate species. The substerile plant, as we may call it, since it rarely ripens any seeds, exhibits the usual exserted stamens 
and large anthers of the genus, and its corollas remain open after anthesis ; this is Nuttall’s P. purpurascens, of which, with 
other substerile forms of the same and some allied species, Decaisne has made his section Novorbis. That these are mostly sterile 
plants may be inferred from the circumstance that of the fifteen admitted species of the section, only two have the capsule and 
seed described, although specimens of all of them have been examined by Decaisne himself; yet in such a spicate inflores¬ 
cence it rartly happens that a dried specimen of a truly fertile plant fails to offer some full-grown fruit and seed. The truly 
fertile form, which is the most common in herbaria, bears flowers all of which are provided with short or included filaments and 
