bracteis parvis sessilibus dente medio-longo; seminibus alis medio latissimis antice sub rotundatis." The type-specimens are in the Kew Herbarium. In these specimens the leaves are much shorter than in Douglas' example of lasiocarpa, while those on the older and fertile branches are sharply pointed and arranged all round the branch instead of in one horizontal plane. The buds are much larger and the cone-scales more oblong or squarish in outline, less auricled and the bract considerably less than half the length of the scale. Of this species specimens were collected by Roezl in New Mexico, and it is from these specimens that the figure given by Murray and here repeated, was made (See p. 134). These New Mexican specimens (if they be really such), do not differ from those from the more northern stations. I have also lately received a fresh cone, with leaves, from Mount Hood, Oregon, where it was collected by Mr. W. Stewart. This also corresponds almost exactly with the type figured here.

X.2.

X.2.

Cone-scale and bract of A. bifolia.

ABIES SUBALPINA.

Abies subalpina of Engelmann was not described until 1876 (in the tenth volume of the American Naturalist'). It may be well to give a copy of Engelmann's original description :-

"ABIES SUBALPINA, Eng. n. sp.--Tall and slim, 80 to 100 feet high, often 50 feet without branches; bark smooth, white, and covered with vesicles to near the base; leaves 6 to 12 lines long, less than a line broad, not twisted near the base, bisulcate and somewhat glaucous on the lower (outer) side, short-pointed, obtuse or slightly emarginate, those on the lower branches 2-ranked and spreading, those on the upper scattered, crowded, and more or less appressed, shorter on fertile than on sterile branchlets; cones 21 to 3 inches long, 1 to 2 inches thick, solitary, erect, ovate or oblong, obtuse, greenish; scales 6 to 10 lines long and about as broad, horizontal and close-pressed, broad-cuneate, unguiculate; the rounded upper margin somewhat reflexed and resinous, pubescent; bracts short, white with a dark base, erose-dentate all round,

their slightly elevated summits furnished with a strong mucro; seeds large, the wing covering nearly the whole surface of the scale; sterile aments 2 inches long, 3 lines in diameter, marked longitudinally and somewhat spirally by the dark centres of the otherwise light brown mucronate scales."- Collected Descriptions of Coniferæ,' Engelmann, Botanical Works,' p. 382.

Tree of A. bifolia (? subalpina) on Mount Hood, Oregon.

The figure (p. 137) was taken from a photograph of A. subalpina Engelmann, forwarded from Colorado to the present writer by Dr. Engelmann himself, together with outline sketches of the leaves, cones, leaf-section, scale and bract, all of which agree

closely with the corresponding parts in the typical bifolia of Murray.

In his "Synopsis of the American Firs" (Trans. Acad. St. Louis, vol. iii. 1878; also Gard. Chron. n. s., vol. ix. 1878, p. 300), Engelmann reverts to this species, to which he refers [Pinus] A. lasiocarpa of Hooker, and also Murray's Abies bifolia. It would seem then that Murray's name has precedence over Engelmann's, and it is difficult to understand why, when Engelmann had discovered this, he did not ignore the name subalpina. Engelmann states that Murray recognised the different forms of foliage on the tree, which suggested the name given, but misapplied the scientific name. But how Murray was in fault in this matter is not obvious.

The leaf-structure of A. bifolia is essentially similar to that of A. lasiocarpa, but the resin-canals are larger in diameter.

Seeing that representatives of one or other of the three forms now mentioned, occur at various elevations on a more or less continuous mountain-range, parallel to, and at no great distance

from, the coast in the north, then proceeding southward and eastward along the Rocky Mountains to Colorado, and perhaps to New Mexico, the conjecture may be hazarded that all these forms belong to one species, or that they may have had a common origin. This view is supported by the variation in the size and form of the leaves of the native specimens, and especially in the young plants cultivated in British nurseries. If this view should be ultimately established, Sir William Hooker's name of lasiocarpa must be adopted to cover the whole. Meanwhile, for practical purposes, the grouping which seems to be most in accordance with the facts as we know them at present, is the following:

PINUS (Abies) LASIOCARPA W. Hook. in Flora Boreali Americana, ii. 163 (1842). Abies lasiocarpa Nuttall, Sylva. ? A. subalpina Engelmann partim.

Interior of N. W. America (Columbia River), Douglas! Lyall in Mus. Kew (cones)!; Oregon, Cascade Mountains, Moseley! ABIES BIFOLIA Murray in Proc. Roy. Hort. Soc. Lond. iii. (1868), p. 818.

A. subalpina Engelmann in 'American Naturalist,' x. 554 (1876) pro parte; Masters in Gard. Chron. Feb. 19, 1881, p. 236, c. ic.; Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond. 1886, vol. xxii. p. 188.

Galton range of the Rocky Mountains, Lyall! E. side of the Cascade Mountains, Lyall! Pringle! Columbia Valley, Lyall! Mount Hood, Oregon, Stewart! Colorado, Forest City, Engelmann & Sargent! Derry! Brandegee! Kelso's Cabin, Hooker & Gray! ? New Mexico, Roezl.

Var. FALLAX Engelmann in Trans. St. Louis. Acad. iii. 597.

I only know this from Engelmann's description, according to which it has "the resin-ducts of this species, but the foliage almost of concolor, leaves sometimes 1 or even 14 in. long, mostly obtuse, and covered with stomata above, glaucous when young."

Cascade Mountains, south of the Colombia, Dr. Newberry fide Engelmann. An imperfect specimen from Colorado, in the Kew Herbarium, appears to belong here.

The full synonymy and bibliography of these forms is given in Prof. Sargent's Report on the Forests of North America, in the Tenth Census Report (1884), p. 211, under the head of Abies subalpina.

Under the same heading the geographical distribution of A. subalpina (including lasiocarpa and bifolia) is given as follows:"Valley of the Stakhin River, Alaska, in lat. 60° N. (Muir), south through British Columbia [at an elevation of 4000 feet], and along the Cascade Mountains to northern Oregon (Collier), through the Blue Mountains of Oregon and the ranges of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado [at an elevation of 12,000 feet]."

A NEW CHENOPODIUM FROM NEW ZEALAND.

BY THOMAS KIRK, F.L.S.

THE remarkable plant which forms the subject of this paper has for many years been known to occur in one or two isolated localities in New Zealand, having been originally discovered by Mr. J. Buchanan in 1868. In the absence of female flowers it was doubtfully referred to C. triandrum Forst., or C. pusilla Hook. f. Recently I have had the pleasure of discovering female flowers, and find that it differs from all known Australian species in its monœcious character, and so far as I am aware from all other species in the staminate and pistillate flowers alike being invariably solitary.

It usually occurs in situations where it is exposed to the influence of the sea spray, and although plentiful in each of its habitats, the habitats extend over a very small area; but to both these peculiarities there is a notable exception which deserves special mention. About eight or nine years ago I received from Mr. D. Petrie specimens collected at an elevation of 1800 feet, on the Maniototo Plains, Otago, about eighty miles from the sea, and recently had the pleasure of visiting that locality, when I found the plant growing in vast abundance on a bed of whitish clay, strongly impregnated with saline matter and extending for miles, although with occasional breaks: wherever this bed was exposed the Chenopodium was most abundant, together with other plants usually restricted to littoral situations.

This species forms depressed whitish-gray patches, easily recognised at a considerable distance owing to the mealy tomentum with which the plant is covered; it is excessively branched, the branches being stiff and wiry, usually appressed to the ground. The flowers are extremely minute; the female being less than half the size of the male are necessarily inconspicuous, but this is not the sole cause of their having escaped notice so long. The female perianth produced is near the base of the branchlets, and as it is of the same consistence and appearance as the farinose leaves, it closely resembles the apex of an impoverished shoot springing from the axil of a leaf, and its true nature is only shown by the short fragile stigmas, which may be easily overlooked, even by a good observer. All traces of the stigmas disappear in badly dried specimens, and it is not an easy matter to detect the female flowers on good specimens, even when they are freely developed. The yellow anthers of the male flowers, which are situate near the tips of the branches, attract attention on a cursory examination.

It affords me great pleasure to connect the name of its original discoverer, Mr. J. Buchanan, F.L.S., with this interesting species.

Chenopodium Buchananii, sp. n. An annual depressed monoecious herb, clothed with farinose tomentum in all its parts; prostrate or rarely suberect, 1-3 in. high, excessively branched, branches wiry. Leaves opposite or alternate, to in. long, entire, ovate, ovate-oblong, or nearly orbicular. Flowers minute, axillary,