Report on the botany of the expedition /by George Engelmann.

ENGINEER DEPARTMENT, U. S. ARMY.
— BXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH IN 1859.

In cHarcr or CAPT. J. H. SIMPSON, TorpoGraruicaL ENGINEERS,

REPORT

ON THE

BOTANY OF THE EXPEDITION,

Dr. GEORGE EHNGELMANN.

MISSOURI
BOTANICAL
GARDEN.

Se

WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
1876.

ENGINEER DEPARTMENT, U. S. ARMY.
EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH IN 1859.

IN CHARGE oF CAPT. J. H. SIMPSON, ToroGraruicaL ENGINEERS.

REPORT

ON THE

BOTANY OF THE EXPEDITION,

Dr. GEORGE ENGELMANN.

MISSOURI.
BOTANICAL
GARDEN.

++ _______

WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
LS re.

EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH.

APPENDIX M,
REPORT

BOTANY OF THE EXPEDITION.

BY

Dr. GEORGE ENGELMANN.

jo EPNED ESS We:

be

Saint Louis, December 31, 1860.
Dear Sir: Want of time has prevented me fully to elaborate the very rich
botanical material brought together, under your orders, by my brother, Henry Engel-
mann, the geologist and meteorologist of your expedition.
I herewith inclose to you an account of a few species, which seem to have a par-
ticular, and principally a practical, interest.
I expect to continue my investigations, and hope to submit them, through you, to
the. scientific public at a future period.
Very respectfuly, &c.,
George HENGELMANN.
Capt. J. Hl. Srpson,
Topographical Engineers, U. S. A., Commanding Expedition.

ROSACEAE.

Cercocarpus LepIFoLius, Nuttall in Torrey and Gray's Fl. N. Am. 1, p. 427; and in
his continuation of Michaux’s Sylva, 2, p. 28, t. 51; Hooker, i. ¢. pl. t. 324; Me pain-
Mahogany of the inhabitants of Utah.

This small ever green tree is so well described by Nuttall in both works mentioned
that not much remains to be added. His figure, however, is not a very faithful repre-
sentation. He says that it grows much like a peach-tree, at most 15 feet high, and
that the trunk is sometimes as much as a foot in diameter. On the expedition, it was
found to grow rarely as a tree, but usually branching from the base, or several stems
from one root; its height was from 8-15 feet, and the stems seen had the thickness of
3-6, or, at most, 10 sailed The bark is light gray, tough, smoothish, with superficial
longitudinal wrinkles and short transverse scars. The wood is hard, heavy, very close-
grained, light reddish-brown, with white.sap; medullary rays very numerous, but
extremely fine, scarcely visible with the naked eye; the wood is similar to cherry-wood,
but harder and heavier. A specimen before me has a diameter of 16 lines, 14 lines of
which are wood, showing 24 annual rings, so that each ring has a thickness of not
much more than 4 line. The shoots, or longer branches, have a white, smooth bark,
with joints or internodes of about 1 inch in length. The leaves, however, are usually

- Prssoual Boranicac
@Waeceu Lien

436 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH.

crowded at the end of lateral branchlets, a few lines to 1 or 14 inches in length closely
covered with circular scars. Leaves very thick and leathery, persistent, lanceolate,
acute at both ends, entire and revolute at the margin, with a thick midrib, prominent
on the lower surface, 9-14 lines long, 24-35 lines wide, on a petiole 15-2 lines long,
to the lower part of which adhere lanceolate, brown, scarious stipules. When young, the
branchlets as well as the leaves are covered all over with short, curly hair; when older,
the leaves becomé glabrous and glossy on the upper surface, the lower remaining hairy
and assuming a rusty color. The sessile flowers are produced in June from the
axils of the uppermost leaves of the preceding year’s growth, either single or 2 or 3
together; short scarious bracts envelop the base of the cylindrical woolly calyx-tube,
which is 3 lines long; its 5-lobed, white limb, 3-4 lines in diameter, is very woolly
externally, and less so internally, and bears about 20 or 25 naked, slender filaments,
with reniform anthers § line in diameter. Immediately after flowering, the silky-feathery
style becomes elongated, and carries up with it the detached limb of the calyx; at
maturity, the style becomes a twisted, feathery tail of about 2 inches in length; the
inconspicuous, linear, hairy fruit itself is about 4 lines long, and remains hid in the
persistent, calyx-tube; at its top and base I observe a beard of very curious, stiff, white
bristles, less than a line in length, thicker in the middle, and tapering toward both ex-
tremities. The fruit seems to be somewhat persistent, as I find it in specimens collected
in spring before the flowering-season. About the time of flowering, the young leaves
begin to develop at the end of the branchlets, leaving the flowers between them and
the leaves of the year before. I generally find 4 or 5 leaves of the same year’s growth
at the end of each branchlet; they probably fall off when about 15 or 18 months old.

This fine tree, discovered by Nuttall on Bear River, north of the Salt Lake, and
near “Thornberg’s Ravine” in the Rocky Mountains, was found by the expedition on
the Lookout Mountains and other mountain-chains of the basin.

CACTACE.

ihe geographical limits of the area of this curious American family have been
considerably enlarged by this expedition, proving the presence of at least 7 species in
the Utah Basin between the thirty-eighth and fortieth parallels, viz: 2 Echinocacti, 1
Cereus, and 4 Opuntize. Several species known before have been found in new loeal-
ities, and 3 new and very distinct species have been discovered, 2 Echinocacti and 1

Opuntia.

— Maminnaria vivipara, Haworth, Suppl. p. 72; Torrey & Gray, Fl. N. Am. 2, p.
554; Engelm. Synops. Cact. p. 13; Cactus vivipartis, Nuttall, Gen. 1, p. 295.

Was collected in the South Pass and on Sweetwater River. It extends from here
to the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico, but its most characteristic forms are
_ peculiar to the more elevated plains, where it assumes that cespitose, spreading appear-
ance, from which it has received its name. The mountain form usually makes larger

heads, but remains single or branches out very sparingly. Its large purple flowers,
with numerous lance-linear, long acuminate, bristle-pointed petals, and its leather-
_ brown pitted seeds, readily distinguish it from allied species.

BOTANICAL REPORT. 437

Ecuinocactus Srmpsont (spec. nov.*) simplex, subglobosus seu depressus, basi
turbinatus, mamilliferus; radicibus fasciculatis; tuberculis laxis ovatis apice oblique
truncatis axilla nudis, junioribus leviter compressis basi deorsum productis, vetustiori-
bus obcompressis basi dilatatis; areolis ovatis seu ovato-lanceolatis, nascentibus albo-
villosissimis mox nudatis; aculeis exterioribus sub 20 radiantibus tenuibus rigidis rectis
albidis, additis supra aculeis 2-5 setaceis brevibus, interioribus 8-10 robustioribus
obscuris erecto-patulis, areola florifera sub tuberculi apice arcolae acfileigerae contigua
circulari; floribus in vertice dissitis minoribus; ovario abbreviato squamis sepaloideis
triangulatis paucissimis (1-3) instructo; sepalis tubi brevis late infundibuliformis orbicu-
latis seu ovatis obtusis membranaceo-marginatis crenulatis fimbriatis, sepalis superiori-
bus 10-12 ovatis obtusis integriusculis, petalis 12-13 oblongis apice crenulatis cuspidatis
ex virescente roseis; stigmatibus 5-7 brevibus erectis, bacea parva viridi sicea umbilico
latissimo truncata squamis paucis subinde aculeiferis instructa flore marcescente demum
deciduo coronata irregulariter basi seu latere dehiscente; seminibus magnis obovatis
obliquis minute tuberculatis, hilo magno ovato subbasilari, embryone circa albumen
pareum fere circumyoluto hamato.

Var. # minor: tota planta, tuberculis, aculeis, floribus seminibusque minoribus.

Butte Valley in the Utah Desert, and Kobe Valley farther west; fl. in April and
May, fr. in June and July. Var. # comes from the mountains of Colorado. This
and the New Mexican Echinocactus papyracanthus,t the Mexican Ech. horripilus, Lem.,
and perhaps the South American Ech. Odierti, Lem., and Ech. Cummingii, Salm, and
probably one or two others, form the small group of Echinocactt, with the appearance
of Mamillaria (Theloidei, tuberculis spiraliter dispositis distinctis, Salm, Cact. Hort,
Dyck 1849, cult. p. 34). They constitute the closest and most imperceptible transi-
tion to Mamillaria subgen. Coryphantha, Synops. Cact., p. 8, which bear the flowers
in the axils of the nascent tubercules, the flower-bearing and the spine-bearing areole
being connected by a woolly groove. In M. macromeris, Engelmann, they come from
the middle of the tubereule (Cact. Mex. Boundary, t. 15, f. 4), and in the. Theloidei
they advance to the top of the tubercule close to the spines, thus assuming the position
which the flowers regularly oceupy in the genus Lchinocactus (see Cact. Mex. Bound. t,
20, £2; t. 21; t 25,£1; t 27,f£1; t 28, £2)4

The ovary is also almost naked, like that of Mamillaria generally, or has only a
few scales, like that of M. macromeris. On the other hand, the dry fruit, such as is
often found in Echinocactus, but never in Mamillaria, the tuberculated black seeds, and
especially the large and curved embryo, and the presence of an albumen, do not
permit a separation from Lchinocactus.

This species is further interesting because it again strikingly proves that the

* An extract of this description was published in the Transactions of the Saint Louis Academy of Sciences, vol
2, p. 197 (1863).

t The plant I formerly described as Mamillaria papyracantha, Plant. Fendl., p. 49; Synops. Cact., p. 8, proves to
belong to this section of Echinocactus. A closer examination of Mr. Fendler’s original imen shows that the floral
areola joins the spiniferous one at the apex of the small nascent tubereules. Thas far Mr. Fendler’s specimen, found
near Santa Fé, has remained the only one ever obtained of this pretty species.

t Echinocactus brevihamatus, Engelm., forms an exception. In this s cies, the flowers are situated exactly as in
Coryphantha, at the base of the tubercle, and connected with the distinct spiniferous areola by a woolly groove, (see
Cact. Mex. Bound. t. 19, fs. 2 and 3). : :

438 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH.

general appearance, the habitus, of a cactus plant, not necessarily indicates its real
affinities. Not only i is it a true Echinocactus, notwithstanding every appearance of a
Mamiillaria, but it is, moreover, closely allied in all its essential characters to the very
compact Ech. intertextus, Engelm., C. Bound. p. 27, t. 34, in which all traces of tuber-
cules are lost in the straight ‘sib It has the same small flowers and the same small
dry fruit, containing few large seeds, of similar structure, though not entirely the same
arrangement of the spines.

Full-grown specimens of our plant are 3-5 inches high and 3-4 inches in diam-
eter, of dark-green color; tubercules loosely arranged in 3 or 3; order, 8 and 13 spirals
being most prominent. They are 6-8 lines long, at base somewhat quadrangular,
6-7 lines wide in the vertical and 4—5 lines in the transverse diameter, becoming sub-
cylindric upward ; areole 3-4 lines long, a little more than half as wide. The fruit-
bearing tubercules are rather stouter and shorter. Exterior spines 4-6 lines long,
whitish; interior ones spreading, stouter, and a little longer (5-7 lines long), yel-
lowish and upward deep brown or black; no truly central spine. In the very young
plant, the spines, 18-20 in number and only 1-14 lines in length, are all radiating,
closely fitting with their compressed bulbous bases on a linear areola, resembling in
shape and arrangement those of Cereus cespitosus. Soon afterward the areola
becomes wider, and 6 or 8 short, stout, brown interior spines make their appearance,
divergent like the original ones. Next the ordinary arrangement, as described above,
takes place.

It seems that quite early in spring the young tubercules on the vertex of the plant
begin to form, exhibiting their densely woolly tops, and soon afterward, long before
any spines make their appearance, the tips of the smooth brown flower-buds come out.
The flowers are 8-10 lines long and of nearly the same diameter, externally greenish-
purple, petals yellowish-green or verging to pale purple. The short stamens arise
from the whole surface of the tube, leaving only a very small nectariferous space in
its base. The fruit is about 3 or 34 lines long and almost as wide, borne on a very
large circular areola, surrounded by a woolly margin (sce t. 2, f£ 1). It bears
toward its top 1-3 scales, sometimes with 1 or 2 small spines in their axils. The
fruit usually opens by an irregular lateral slit; falling off, its base remains attached
to the areola, as is the case in many (or all? or only all the dry-fruited ?) Mchinocacti,
thus producing a basal opening (see t. 2, f. 5). Seeds 14 lines long in the longest
diameter, covered with minute close-set tubercles. The young seedling shows erect,
pointed cotyledons, and, when a few weeks old, begins to develop its pubescent spines,

Var. £ has been received this fall from the Colorado gold-region;* the smallest
specimens were 1 inch in diameter, globose, the small tubercules in :\ order, spines
14-2 lines long, often curved; sometimes 1-3 darker stouter ones in the center. The
larger specimens are alee of the size of those of Utah, but often depressed at top;

_ tubereules arranged in 3% or even 34 order, spines only 4—5 lines long, 20-28 external

and 6 or 7 internal ones.
_ This species has — named in honor of the gallant commander of the expedition.

2 ee te’ |

“ higher elevation than any other northern Cc actus, ocenp g the
: ying e.
: gravelly moraines of the Glacial pay of Clear Creek Valley, between 8,000 and 9,000 ome altitude, and in the soutberd
“ € the —— the Sangre de Cristo Pass, 10,000 feet high (January, 1876).

BOTANICAL REPORT. : 439

Plate 1. Echinocactus Simpsoni as it appears in early spring; on the vertex a young
growth of tubercules is visible, their tops covered with wool.
Plate 2.. Details of the same.

Fig. 1. Four tubercules from near the vertex, one shows the broad sear where the
fruit has fallen off, another one is just developing its spines, exhibiting their

: points above the thick wool.

Fig. 2. A detached tubercule bearing a ripe fruit.

Figs. 3 and 4. Flowers with the upper part of the tubercule and its young spines.

Figs. 5 and 6. The fruit magnified three times; fig. 5 showing the basal opening,
fig. 6 the broad umbilicus.

Fig. 7. A scale of this fruit, more magnified, with two axillary spines.

Figs. 8-12. .Seed: fig. 8 natural size, the others eight times magnified; fig. 9 lat-
eral, fig. 10 dorsal, fig. 11 basal view; fig. 12 part of the surtace, highly mag-
nified. )

Fig. 13. Embryo, enveloped in the inner seed-coat, including also the albumen;

2 magnified.

Fig. 14. Lateral, fig. 15 frontal view of the embryo, magnified.

Fig. 16. Seedling, a few weeks old, magnified.

Fig. 17. Tubercules of the smaller variety from Colorado, in every state of devel-
opment.

Ecninocactus punisprnus (spec. nov.) * parvulus, turbinatus, costis 13 subobli-
quis compressis interruptis tuberculatis; areolis orbiculatis, aculeis brevibus, rectis seu
sepe curvatis albidis apice adustis velutinis demum nudatis; radialibus superioribus
1-2 robustioribus, longioribus rectis curvatis seu hamatis, ceteris 5-8 brevioribus;
aculeo centrali deficiente seu singulo robustiore longiore arrecto sursum hamato ;
flore?; fructu ?.

Pleasant Valley, near the Salt Lake Desert, found May 9 without flower or
fruit. Plant 2 inches high, 1 or 14 in diameter; compressed tubercules 4—6 lines dis-
tant from one another, confluent in 13 ribs, radial spines 1-4 lines long, white pubes-
cent or almost tomentose, more so than I have observed it in any other cactus; on the
lower areole, I find only 5-6 spines, the upper ones a little longer and stouter than
the balance; farther upward, the number increases to 10, one or more of the upper
ones becoming still stouter and often hooked; at last here and there a single central
spine makes its appearance, 5-6 lines long, the strong hook always turned inward or
upward. At first, only the dusky point of the spine is naked; with age, the whole
coating seems to wear off. In another specimen, I find the spines 8-12 in number, a
little longer, more slender, all radiating. The small supraspinal areola proves this
plant to be an Echinocactus ; it probably belongs, together with the next, to the sec-
tion Hamati, Synops. Cact. p. 15. —

Ecurocacrus Wurrrtet, Engelm. & Bigelw, Pacif. R. Rep. IV, Cact. p. 28, t. 1, Syn.
Cact.p.15. Var. sprnostor: globosus; costis 13 compressis interruptis; aculeis radialibus
9-11, inferioribus seepe obscurioribus, reliquis longioribus niveis, 2 superioribus seepe

* This description has been published in Trans. Acad. St. Louis, vol. 2, p. 199 (1863). It is rather strange that
neither this nor the above-mentioned E. papyracanthus has ever been found again (January, 1876).

—

440 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH.

elongatis complanatis ctirvatis ; centralibus 4, summo elongato complanato pergamen-
taceo flexuoso albo, 3 reliquis paullo brevioribus obscuris omnibus seu solum infimo
hamatis; floribus minoribus; ovario squamis sepaloideis 5 oblongis munito ; sepalis
tubi linearibus margine membranaceis integris mucronulatis, petalis angustis oblongis ;
stigmatibus 6-7 brevibus in capitulum globosum congestis; bacca ovata parce squa-
mata floris rudimentis persistentibus coronata.

The species was originally discovered on the Little Colorado by Dr. Bigelow, and
was found afterward on the same stream by Dr. Newberry ; the variety here described
was met with more than 5 degrees farther north, in Desert Valley, west of Camp
Floyd; remains of fruit, with the withered flowers attached, and some seeds, were
found concealed between the spines from which the description has been drawn.* -
Globose heads 3 inches in diameter, radial spines 4-14 inches long, central ones 13-2
inches in length; flowers, if I may judge from the withered remains, about 1 inch
long; ovary small, bearing about 5 membranaceous scales, the lower triangular,
the upper oblong-linear, almost entire, and never cordate or auriculate at base, as they
appear in most of the allied species; sepals of tube also narrow, linear, or oblong-lin-
ear, 2-5 or 6 lines long, $1 line wide, stigmas about $line long. Fruit apparently
an oval berry, $ inch long; seed just as it is described and figured in Whipple’s Cac-
tacex ; the tubercules on the seed-coat are extremely minute and distant from one an-
other, each forming a central protuberance on the otherwise flat surface of an angular
cell of two or three times the diameter of the tubercule itself; embryo curved about
# around a rather copious albumen.

Cereus virmprrLorus, Engelm. in Wisliz. Mem. note 8, sub Echinocereo ; Cact.
Mex. Bound. t. 36; Synops. Cact. p. 22.

This is evidently the northernmost Cereus, extending to the Upper Platte; it is
abundant in Colorado. These northern specimens are 1-3 inches high, 13-ribbed, and
show the greatest variability in the color of the radial spines ; in some bunches, they
are all red, in others white, in others again the colors are distributed without much
regularity ; sometimes the upper and lower spines are white and the lateral ones red,
or a few or even a single one above and below are red and all the rest white; or the
lower ones are red and the upper ones white, and all these variations sometimes occur
onthe same specimen. I mention this to show how little reliance can be placed on

- the colors or the distribution of the colors of the spines. Central spines wanting or 1
or 2 projecting horizontally, straight or curved upward, white or tipped with purple
or all purple, 6-9 lines in length.

Cereus Encetmanni, Parry in Sillim. Journ. n. ser. 14, p. 338; Engelm. Cact.
Bound, p. 36, t=. 57; Synops. Cact. p. 27.

Deserts west of the Salt Lake, without flower or fruit. Specimen entirely simi-
lar to the one figured in the Cactaceze of the Boundary. The species seems to extend
from the Salt Lake region southwestwardly to Arizona and the Mohave country.

rado ( z * cise: oo" Dr. Hayden’s Expedition of 1875, Mr. Brandegee, found it abundantly in Southwestern Colo.

BOTANICAL REPORT. 441

OpUunTIA SPHHROCARPA, L/ngelm. and Bigelow, Pac. R. Rep. IV, Cact. p. 47, t. 18,
Ss. 6-7; Syn. Cact. p. 44. Var.? Uranensts: diffusa, leete-virens, articulis orbiculato-
obovatis, crassis, junioribus seepe globoso-obovatis ; areolis subapproximatis ; foliis min-.
utis subulatis divaricatis; setis brevissimis paucis stramineis; aculeis nullis seu parvulis
nune singulo longiore recto robusto albido; floribus sulphureis, ovario obovato areolis
fusco-tomentosis sub-25 instructo, sepalis excise transyersis obcordatis cuspida-
tis; petalis 8 late-obovatis emarginatis; stylo vix supra stamina exserto; stigmatibus
8 brevibus erectis; bacca obovata areolis plurimis tomentosis stipata; seminibus nu-
merosis irr Sralariter compressis anguste marginatis.

Pass west of Steptoe Valley, in the western mountains of the Basin, found
July 19 in flower and fruit. Joints 2-3 inches long and of almost the same diameter;
often over 4 inch in thickness, sometimes almost terete or rather egg-shaped; areolze
6 or 8 lines apart; leaves very slender and acute, scarcely 1 line long, smaller than
in any other of our species except O. basilaris, also a western form from the Lower
Colorado. Bristles few, and even in old joints scarcely more than $ line long; spines
none, or on the upper areolz a few short ones, with here and there a stouter one }-1
inch in length. Flowers nearly 3 inches in diameter, pale or sulphur-yellow, when
fading, reddish; fruit about 1 inch long and half as wide, with a deep umbilicus,
and with 20-25 areolze, which sometimes show a few bristles or a minute spine; seeds
very irregular, 2, or, in the largest diameter, sometimes 24 lines wide.

Unwilling to increase the number of illy-defined species in this most difficult
genus, I attach this plant to the only species known to me to which it possibly can be
compared, O. spherocarpa from New Mexico, though its fruit is not spherical, has not
a shallow umbilicus, and is, at least in the specimen before me, not dry; the latter
would be an insuperable distinction, if we might not suspect, what in fact is often
the case, that the fruit later in.the season would become dry and brittle. The leaves,
which heretofore have been entirely too much neglected as a diagnostic character in
this genus, and the flowers of the original O. spherocarpa, are unknown thus far.

OpunTIA TorRTISPINA, Engelm. & Bigelow, 1. c. p. 41, t. 8. fs. 2-3; Syn. Cact. p. 37.

Forks of the Platte; in flower in July. The specimens being very incomplete, I
am not quite sure that this is the same species as that of Captain Whipple’s Expedi-
tion; the joints appear to be somewhat smaller, the areole closer together, and the
spines shorter (1-14 inches) and rather weaker; it may possibly prove to be an
extreme form of O. Rafinesquii, the area of which extends to the Rocky Mountains.
Leaves subulate, 2 lines long; flowers 24-3 inches in diameter, sulphur-yellow; ovary
long (1-14 inches), with 20-30 areole, with light-brown wool and short bright-brown
bristles; exterior sepals obovate, lance-cuspidate; petals 6-8, broadly obovate, obtuse,
crenulate; stigmas 6-8, short, erect, as long as the stamens.

OPUNTIA HysTRIcINA, EHngelm. & Bigelow, l. c. p. 44, t. 15, fs. 5-7; Syn. Cact. p. 43.

A flowering specimen, collected in June between Walker and Carson Rivers, is

exactly like one found by Dr. Bigelow on the Colorado Chiquito; it has slenderer and

straighter spines than the one fvuted in Whipple’s Report, and approaches somewhat

to O. erinacea, E. & B., of the Mohave region, in which I now recognize the long-los:
566 BU

442 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH.

0. rutila, Nutt. in Torr. & Gar: Flor. 1, p. 555. Joints 5 inches long, half as wide,
obovate; leaves 14 lines long; areole closely set with long straw- éolored bristles;
lower ones with few and short white spines, upper ones with numerous grayish-red
spines, 14-2 inches in length. Flowers. pale straw-colored, 25-3 in diameter; ovary
1 inch long, with 20-30 white woclly aculeolate areole; exterior sepals oblanceolate,
squarrose, or recurved at the elongated tip; petals obovate, obtuse, crenulate; style
with 8 or 10 short erect stigmas, longer than the stamens. The squarrose tips of the
sepals are particularly conspicuous on the bud.

Opuntia Missourtensis, De Cand. Prod. 3, p. 472; Torr. & Gray, Fl.1, p. 555 (in
part); Cactus ferox, Nutt. Gen. 1, p. 296. ~

From the deserts of Salt Lake Valley to Rush Valley; specimens without flower
or fruit. Joints small (2-3 inches long), broadly obovate or circular; areole closely
set; spines numerous, stiff, stout, angular, white, mostly deflexed.

Opuntia Missourrensis, var. ALBISPINA, Hngelm. & Bigelor, 1. c. p. 46; t. 14, Ss.
8-10; Syn. Cact. p. 44.

Smith Creek, Lookout Msuntstie ; in Western Utah; flowering in July. By their
slender flexuous spines, the specimens approach to var. trichophora. Flowers 3-35
inches in diameter, bright golden-yellow; ovary 1 inch long, with 20 or 25-areole,
scarcely spiny; exterior sepals obovate, cuspidate; petals about 8, obtuse, crenulate;
style shorter than the stamens; stigmas about 5, very short, erect. Some flowers have
elongated and very spiny ovaries, evidently abortive.

OpuNTIA FRAGILIS, Haworth, Suppl. p. 82; Torr. & Gray, Fl.1, p. 555; Synops. Cact.
p. 45; Cactus fragilis, Nutt. Gen. 1, p. 296.

Fort Kearny to the North Platte country; in flower in June and J uly. This is,
I believe, the first time that the flowers of this species were collected since Nuttall’s
discovery of it in 1813. Travelers report that the plant is very frequently seen in the
sterile prairies east of the Rocky Mountains, but that it is rare to find them in flower |
and rarer still in fruit. Since many years I have the plant in cultivation from speci-
mens brought down by Dr. Hayden, but have not been able to get it to flower.
Nuttall baby informs us that the flowers are solitary and small. In the specimen
before me, they are yellow, scarcely 2 inches in diameter; ovary 8-9 lines long; the
15-15 areole are densely covered with thick white wool; the upper ones bear a few
white spines; lower sepals broadly oval, with a short cusp; petals 5, obovate, rounded,
-crenulate; style longer than the stamens; stigmas 5, short, erect, cuspidate. *

* Through the kindness of Dr. A. W. Chapman, of Apalachicola, Fla., I have received living specimens and fruit

of O. Pes Corvi, so that I can now complete the description of this very distinet southern species.
Opuntia Pes Corvi, Le Conte in herb. Engelm.; Append. to Synops. Cact. in Proceed. Am. Acad. Arts § Se. 3, p. 346; Chap-
seri Fl. Souk. vz Sp. — = Siffens, ne viridis; articulis _—* — seu obovate fumidis sepins teretinsenis con-
; foliis eolis junioribus
albo-tomentosis setas | parcas brevissimas pallidas et plerisqns aculeos 1-3 rectos rigidos spe basi inane 8 tortosve
obscuros gere ntibus, infimis sneered a — — —— se pulvillos perpaucos fusco-villosos ge-
rants: “sepals, exterioribus ova is; petalis sub-5 obovatis spatulatis obtusis ;
1 on ibus 4-5 erectis ; seminibus panciasimis anguste obtuseque marginatis in pulpa viscosa

li ronate nidulantibnu

- Barren ne places ee ~ coast of — and Florida, Joints 1-3 inches long, obovate tumid, or narrower

styl

BOTANICAL REPORT. 443

OPUNTIA PULCHELLA (spec. nov.) :* parvula ceespitosa diffusa; articulis parvis ob-
ovato-clavatis; foliis minutis e basi ovata Subulatis; areolis confertis, superioribus acu-
leos albidos rectos, singulum longiorem complanatum porrectum seu deflexum alios
brevissimos radiantes gerentibus; floris purpurei ovario areolis 13-15 convexis albo
villosissimis et longe setosis dense stipato ; sepalis inferioribus-lineari-oblongis breviter
cuspidatis, superioribus spatulatis; petalis sub-8 obovatis obtusis, stylo cylindrico ex-
serto, stigmatibus 5 linearibus suberectis; bacea sicca setosissima, seminibus crassis
rhaphe lata plana notatis.

Sandy deserts on Walker River;+ fl. in June.

This is one of the smallest, as it is one of the prettiest, species of this genus. It
belongs to the small section of Clavate (Synops. Cact. p. 46) of the cylindric Opun-
tie, but is distinct from all those known to me by its small joints and purple flowers;
all the others have, so far as I know, yellow flowers. Joints 1-14 inches long, 4-6
lines thick, very slightly tuberculated; leaves scarcely one line long; areolze crowded,
white woolly; larger central spine on the upper areola 4—6 lines long, flat, and some-
what rough above, convex below; smaller ones 4—6 or 10, radiating, $-14 lines long;
flowers crowded, of a beautiful bright purplish-red or deep rose-red color, 14-14
inches in diameter; ovary 4-5 lines long, beset with white capillary spines, 3-5 lines
long, 15-20 on each areola; style not ventricose, as is usual in the genus, but cylin
dric; stigmas slender, pale yellow; berry clavate, at last dry, about 1 inch long, well
marked by the conspicuous white-woolly areole and their numerous purplish-brown,
flexible, hair-like bristles, 4—6 or 7 lineslong. These bristles are entirely destitute of the
minute barbs which otherwise invariably characterize spines and bristles of Opuntie.
The thick round seeds, 2 lines in diameter, are well distinguished by a broad rhaphe,
much wider than I have seen it in any other clavate Opuntia.

Plate 3, Fig. 1. Part of a plant of Opuntia pulchella, showing a flower-bud and two

flowers, natural size.

Figs. 2-4. Bunches of spines, 4 times the natural size.

Fig. 5. Section of a larger spine, more magnified.

Fig. 6. A leaf from an ovary with the sarah woolly and bristly areola, 4 times
natural size.

Fig. 7. A fruit.

Figs. 8-9. Seed, 4 times magnified; fig. 9 showing the broad rhaphe.

and cylindric, fresh or dark green, usually growing one on top of the other, forming chains of 1 or 2 feet long, at last
prostrate ; joints fragile, separating as readily as in O. fragilis ; Paesia D secs ce 4-6 or Sch 8 a es apart; leaves 24-34 or
4 lines long, incurved; spines 1-14 inches long, very straight, wl the “ crowsfoot ”’ used inst
cavalry, whence the name given by the military gentlemen who discovered this species. Flowers 1-1} inches in
diameter ; sepals and petals less numerous and narrower than in any allied species; ovary about 4 inch long, with only
2 or 3 areole on the surface and 3-5 on the upper margin. Fruit obovate, 6-7 lines long, rose-purple, with a shallow
umbilicus, oftened crowned with the blackened remains of the flower; areole almost obliterated ; red pulp very glut:-
nous, including 1-3 or at, most 5 seeds, which are regularly shaped, lenticular, with a narrow but thick and very
By its pulpy fruit, this species is widely removed from 0. fragilis, to which its tumid and fragile joints seem

to ally it, nor can it be confounded with any other species, though allied to O. vul¢ gerit and O. Rafinesquii.

* An account of this species was given in the Transactions of the St. Louis Acad. 2, p. 201 (1863

+ This pretty species was afterward elias ted, 1867, “among the sage brushes” of Nevada, by Mr. William Gabb
and in the following year by Mr. S. Watson “ frequent in the valleys of Western Nevada from the Trinity Mountains
to Monitor Valley, 4-5,000 feet alt.” ;

444 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH.

COMPOSIT 2.

The name of “ Wild Sage”, now so familiar to every traveller in our western mount-
ain-deserts, was first used by Lewis and Clarke, in the narrative of their adventurous
expedition, to designate several species of Artemisia or Wormwood, distantly resembling
the true garden sage, Salvia officinalis, by their gray foliage and aromatic odor. It seems
that now this name has, by common use, been restricted to the larger shrubby species,
which give a peculiar character to the arid plateaus of Western North America, and which
are of the highest importance to the traveller as “furnishing the sole article of fuel or shel-
ter which they meet in wandering over these woodless deserts”, as already Nuttall informs
us in his genera of North American Plants, 2, p. 142. He states that the “Wild Sage” is
his Artemisia Columbiensis, which name was by him improperly substituted for the prior
name of A. cana, described by Pursh from the original specimens of Lewis and Clarke.
Torrey and Gray, in their Flora of N. America, 2, p- 418, doubt whether this really is
the “Wild Sage” of those travelers, and come to the conclusion that that name was
indiscriminately applied to several shrubby species ; they further state that the plant
given by Governor Lewis to Pursh as “the Sage” is the herbaceous A. Ludoviciana
found on the homeward voyage on the Missouri River.

I have now the means, through information obtained from Mr. H. Engelmann and
from Dr. F. V. Hayden, to throw a little more light on this question, which is not
without importance for botanical geography. The two species here in question are—

Artemisia cana, Pursh, Fl. Am. sept. 2, p. 521; Torrey and Gray, Fl. N. Am. 2, p.
418.—Shrubby, with woody stem 2-4 inches in diameter, 2-4 feet (on the Yellowstone,
Dr. Hayden) or 2-6 feet high (on the Laramie Plains, H. Engelmann). Stem covered
with a light-gray bark, which is separated into many layers of loose shreds connected
by smaller transverse fibers, and is readily torn off. Wood light, porous, pale-colored,
with very many darker brown medullary rays, easily separating along the division of the
annual rings. These rings, or layers, are from $1 line in thickness, as stems of 14-2
inches diameter show about a dozen rings, and are consequently as many years old. The
stems are rarely cylindrical, but mostly: compressed, knotty, and variously twisted, and
often stunted; they are sometimes divided from the base, but oftener bear short and thick
branches higher up. The annual branchlets are crowded along the older branches,
8-12 inches long, densely coated with a soft, white pubescence, and crowded with
silvery-gray leaves, and bear toward their upper part and on the numerous short and
erect lateral branchlets a profusion of small flower-heads, forming a spiked or con-
tracted panicle, interspersed with short leaves. The leaves are flat, linear-lanceolate,
entire or-(the lower ones) rarely lobed, 1-2 or 24 lines wide and 14-2 inches
the upper ones becoming smaller. The flower-heads are mostly sessile,
hemispherical, about 2 lines long and wide; outer scales of involucrum shorter, folia-
ceous, and canescent (sometimes the lowest ones larger than the flowers, and pointed);
inner scales nearly as long as flowers, brownish, scarious, obtuse, cottony-fimbriate
on the margins. The flowers are all perfect, usually 5, in some specimens as many as
8 in number, 14 lines long; ovary glandular, and, when bruised, with the odor of |
- wormwood,

long,

or nearly so,

BOTANICAL REPORT. 445

This is the “Wild Sage” of the Upper Missouri (above the mouth of the Yellow-
stone) and the Yellowstone River, and of the Laramie Plains, but it does not seem to
occur west of the Rocky Mountains, as Torrey and Gray (/. c.) already state, and
Nuttall (2 ¢.) must have confounded it with other species, when he contends that it is
_ “still more abundant on the barren plains of the Columbia River”, and that it grows

6 to 8 or 12 feet high.

ARTEMISIA TRIDENTATA, Nuttall in Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. (n. ser.) 7, p. 398; Torrey
and Gray, Fl. 2, p. 418.—Trunk, bark, and wood very similar to that of the last species,
but trunk often larger, and usually even more twisted and knotty, with very numerous
short and stunted branches, which are repeatedly divided into a great many smaller
branchlets; ultimate annual branchlets fascicled, erect, only 3-6 inches long, canescent
or silvery, very leafy at base, rather naked upward, bearing strict, rather compact, pan-
iculate spikes, composed of sessile or usually pedunculate spikelets or glomerules of 3
to 6 or 8 sessile heads. Leaves silvery-white on both surfaces, crowded at the base of
the branches, and often fascicled on short or stunted sterile branches, narrowly wedge-
shaped, 14-2 lines wide at the obtuse tridentate or trilobed end, narrowed down into
a more or less distinct petiole; usually 3-6, rarely 8, lines long. Inflorescence inter-
spersed with short and narrow, undivided, cuneate or spatulate obtuse leaves. Heads
of flowers narrow, obovoid, nearly 14 lines long, not much more than half as wide,
with short and obtuse, canescent, exterior scales, and longer, scarious, interior scales,
ciliate on the sides. Flowers in some specimens 3, in others often 4-5 in each head,
all perfect, scarcely more than 1 line long; ovary quite glandular and with the odor
of turpentine.

This is the ‘Wild Sage” of Utah, and, perhaps, of the whole region west of the
Rocky Mountains, where it seems to supplant the more eastern A. cana. Nuttall, who
first described it, calls it a shrub about a foot high, and as such it appears in the
mountains of Colorado; but in Utah it is the largest and most abundant species,
usually 2-4 feet high, rarely attaining a height of 6 feet, and then not straight, and
with trunks of 3-6 inches diameter; sometimes the smallest bushes have trunks fully
as. thick as the tallest ones, short and chunky. East of the mountains, in the range of
A, cana, it ever remains an inconspicuous shrub, lost among the more common species.
Near Camp Floyd, specimens were collected bearing white tomentose excrescences of
the size of a pea, or larger, undoubtedly galls caused by the sting of insects; the same
have been observed on this species in Colorado.

The other species of Artemisia collected by the expedition were A. Canadensis,
Michx., at Bridger’s Pass; A. Ludoviciana, Nutt., at Sweetwater, Bridger’s Pass, Round
Prairie, etc.; A. dracunculoides, Pursh, on the Sweetwater; and A. frigida, Willd., on the
Upper Sweetwater River.

CHENOPODIACE.

SARCOBATUS VERMICULATUS, Torrey in Emory’s [teport (1848), p. 149. Batis (?)
vermiculata, Hooker, Flor. Bor.-Am. 2, p. 128 (1840); Sarcobatus Maximiliani, Nees in
Pr. Mazimil. Trav. Engl. ed. p. 518 (ex Torrey), Seubert in Bot. Zeitung, 1844, p. 753, cum
tab., Lindley in Hooker, Lond. Journ. Bot. IV, p. 1 (1845); Fremontia vermicularis,

446, EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH.

Torrey in Frémont’s First Report, 1843, Rept. 1845, p. 95, and Frémont’s Second Report,
1845, p. 317, tab. 3; Sarcacanthus, Nuttall in Pl. Gambel, p. 184; Sarcobatus vermicu-
- laris, Torrey -in Sitgr. Rep. p. 169, in Stansb. Rep. p. 394, in Bot. Whipple, p. 130;*
Pulpy Thorn or Pulpy-leaved Thorn of Lewis and Clarke; Greasewood of the present
travelers and settlers.

This curious and important plant is found on the arid saline plains, principally on
elayey soil, which in the wet season is moist, and on the border of salt-lakes, often covering
large patches, from below Fort Pierre on the Missouri (Dr. Hayden) to the Upper
Platte River (1rémont, H. Engelmann), and Upper Canadian (Dr. James) east of the
Rocky Mountains to the plains of the Columbia (Lewis and Clarke, Douglas, Frémont),
Utah (Frémont, Stansbury) through the Basin to Carson Valley (H. Engelmann) and
down to the Gila River (Zmory). Though discovered and noticed by Lewis and Clarke
(1804) and collected by Dr. James (1819), this shrub was first described, 1840, by
Hooker, in his North American Flora, from Oregon specimens, and was doubtfully
referred by him to Batis. A few years later, it was again described by Nees in his
account of the plants collected by the Prince of New Wied as a new genus under the
name of Sarcobatus, and very soon afterward, and without a knowledge of the publica-
tion by Nees, again by Torrey under that of Fremontia. It is a great pity that this
last name had to give way to priority, though at present a much handsomer and showy
Californian shrub bears Frémont’s name, the wide-spread Greasewood of the western
mountains and deserts would more fitly have commemorated the bold and hardy pioneer
of explorers to the millions, who now do or in time to come will know and value this
plant. :

The Greasewood forms a scraggy, stunted shrub, 2 or 3 to as much as 6 or 8
feet high; in Utah, it is commonly 3-4 feet high. The stems are scarcely ever more
than 1 or 2 and rarely 3 inches thick, knotty, flattened, twisted, and often with irregu-
lar ridges and holes (the sears of decayed branches) ; sometimes, however, many straight
shoots issue from a single base, 4-$ inch thick, so straight as to be used for arrows.
They are covered with a compact, smoothish or slightly roughened, light-gray bark.
The wood is very hard and compact, of light-yellow, in the core light-brownish, color,
with very thin annual layers, in younger plants about $, in older ones 4 of a line or
less thick. The oldest stems seen showed 20-25 rather indistinct rings, and were con-
sequently so many years old. The numerous smaller branches have a smooth, shining
white bark, and are beset with white spines at right angles; these spines are Sadeiuiad
branches of two kinds. The sharper and shorter ones are real
more than 4-1 inch long; they bear leaves only, or, in the
and are terminated by a sharp point and never by a stamin
aioagteromiogn tae sape — _ which, after flowering, has fallen
a ha sk aes Ss even longer, when they are apt to bear

Poms P e Hower-bearing branches are very often secondary axilla
productions closely under the sterile primary branch, which constitut t : ace
that the spines often appear as axillary to the flower-h ae be Wee
sae ae plo. atar: of Ob ; earing branches. The leaves are

dy; } uwn Harrowed toward the base, flattened or even slightly

_ * Compare S. Watson’: : isi - ees : at en caeONNAL OME
Sd pesca ore eat ne Mente the American Chenopodiacew in Proc, Am. Ac. Arts So. vol. 9, p. 82 (1875).

spines, scarcely ever
axils of these, female flowers,
ate spike. The other spines

» 2

BOTANICAL REPORT. : 447

channeled on the upper surface, and keeled on the lower one, at least toward the base,
leaving a triangular scar after falling off. They are $-1 inch, rarely as much as 14
inches long, and $ line, or sometimes, in the upper half, even 1 line, wide; in young and
vigorous shoots, I have seen the leaves flatter, shorter, and broader, almost lanceolate.
Their surface usually is perfectly glabrous; in specimens from Carson Lake, however,
I find the younger leaves covered with a rough and sometimes branghed pubescence.
The leaves are sometimes on the lower part of the branches opposite, but commonly
alternating in? order. The staminate and pistillate flowers are both very imperfect,
but very differ ent in their arrangement and structure; they usually occur on the same
plant, though some plants seem to bear scarcely any but staminate, others only pistil-
late, flowers. The staminate flowers are crowded into a deciduous spike or ament,
terminating the branches. This spike is, before the flowers open, 3-5 lines long and
14 lines thick, and very compact, exhibiting only the rhombic surfaces of the. scales;
afterward it aiGiagatais to the length of 5-9 ities: showing the deciduous anthers under
and between the separated stalee. The spike consists of 25-35 peltate angular scales,
pointed at the upper end, which cover 3-5 broadly oval anthers, sessile on “the rhachis,
$ line long, 2—celled, opening laterally. The fertile flowers are usually solitary in the
axils of ne leaves and sessile; in some specimens, I find a secondary flower just below
the primary one, and sometimes even below a branch, springing from the same axil ;
sometimes they are aggregated on abbreviated branchlets, forming irregular latter:
The flower consists of a tubular calyx with an inconspicuous rim, investing the lower
half of the ovary, which is terminated by two unequal subulate stigmas, lateral in
regard to the stem. In the fruit, this rim is enlarged to a broad, circular, spreading
wing, 3-5 lines in diameter, green or sometimes red, which surrounds the upper third
of the fruit. The flattened vertical seed, inclosed in the membranaceous utriculus, is”
about 1 line in diameter, and contains a spiral embryo without an albumen, as-already
demonstrated and figured by Professor Torrey in Frémont’s Report.

The Greanewood | is found in flower from June to August.

The form from Carson Lake seems to be distinguished not only by the pubescence
of the younger parts of the plant, but also by its more squarrose growth, its subdice-
cious flowers, and.its aggregated fertile flowers and fruits; but the Greasewood of other
localities is also fen: subdicotaes, so that when first described, it was considered a
truly dicecious plant.

: Gerorce ENGELMANN.

| Appendix M, Plate |.

Expls. of Capt. J.H.Simpson's 1858-59.

A
a

tm

NY

T. Sinclair & Son. lith. Phila.

ECHINOCACTUS SIMPSONI ENCELM.

FP Roetter del.

Expls. of Capt. J.H.Simpson’s 1858-59. Appendix M, Plate Il.

PRoetter del.

ECHINOCACTUS SIMPSONI ENGELM. :

Expls. of Capt. J. H.Simpson’s 1858-59. . Appendix M, Plate III:

T. Sinclair & Son. lith Phila. BRoetter del.