Reports of explorations and surveys, to ascertain the most practicable and economical route for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean: Vol. 4, Pt. 3

BOTANY.
BURRIELIA TENERRIMA, DC. Prodr. 5, p. 663. Cocomungo, California; March. Inthesame
head some of the flowers present a pappus of a single large palea, (awned from a broad base;)
others have a minute rudiment of a palea, the greater number none at all; thus destroying all
claims of Baeria to rank as a genus. Perhaps the epappose state of more than one Burrielia may
have been referred: to B. chrysostoma.
BURRIELIA (DiCH.:TA) LANOSA (Sp. nov.): pygmea, arachnoideo-lanata, foliosa; folis linearibus plerumque integerrimis; capitulo sessili; involucri squamis oblongis ligulisque ovalibus
(albis?) 8; antheris appendice setiformi auctis; pappo ex aristis 4 subulatis scabris corolla
paullo brevioribus et squamis totidem oblongis obtusis denticulatis alternantibus. Gravelly
hills near the Colorado of the West; February. The specimens are barely an inch high from
a slender annual root, leafy to the head, and clothed throughout with a loose white wool. They
are evidently early seedling plants, flowering at the first approach of spring, but probably
branching and increasing considerably in height as the season advances. They were found
growing along with equally pigmy specimens of Eremiastrum bellidioides. Perhaps the wool is
deciduous with age. Leaves half an inch long, tapering downwards, one of them is two-lobed
at the apex. Involucre campanulate, two and a half or three lines long, resembling that of a
Bahia Eriophyllum. - Ligules two lines long, broadly oval, truncate and emarginate or threetoothed at the summit. Disk-flowers yellow. Anthers tipped with a setiform appendage almost
of their own length. The intermediate palewe of the pappus almost half the length ofthe aristiform ones, which are about two-thirds the length of the disk-corolla. Ovaries linear, minutely
hairy.
HELENIUM AUTUMNALE, Ltnn. Springs and wet places on the upper Canadian; September. A
roughish and rigid-leaved state.
HELENIUM MEXICANUM, H. B. K. Nov. Gen. & Spec. 4, p. 299; DC. Prodr. 5, p. 666. Bolnas
Bay, California; April. The same as No. 357 of Coulter's California collection. The pappus
is from a third to half the length of the disk-corolla, as it is in Humboldt's plant.
HELENIUM BIGELOVII (sp. nov.): subglabrum; caule bipedali simplici apice longe nudo monocephalo vel superne parce ramoso; ramis monocephalis; foliis lineari-lanceolatis integerrimis
parallele triplinerviis basi plerumque in caulem decurrentibuts; ligulis palmatifidis involucri
squamis subulatis et disco hemisphwrico paullo longioribus; pappi paleis 5-7 ovato-lanceolatis
aristatis corolla 5-dentata tertia parte breviore. Swamps near Santa Rosa Creek, California;
May. Plant, when single-stemmed and simple, with much the aspect of a Leptopoda and of
Hecubea; the striate stem moderately leafy below, its naked summit or peduncle 10 or 12 inches
long, thickened under the head. One specimen, however, is considerably branched above.
Leaves from 3 to 6 inches long, 3 to 5 lines wide, erect, tapering to each end; thelower ones
again dilated at the insertion, and mostly decurrent on'the stem into a slight or manifest wing;
the radical leaves similar or rather shorter and broader. Rays numerous and crowded, bright
yellow. Disk two-thirds of an inch in diameter, between hemispherical and depressed-globose,
as is the receptacle, considerably larger than in any form of H. autumnale, but the rays not so
long in proportion. This handsome and well-marked species is dedicated to the discoverers.
ACTINELLA RIcHARDSONIr, Nutt. to Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. 1. c.; Gray, PIN, Iendl. p. 101.
Pine and Cedar woods near G'alisteo, New Mexico; October.
AcTr~ELLA LEPTOCLADA, (sp. nov.): caulibus e caudice perenni crasso multicipiti gracilibus
ramosis foliosis; ramis apice longe nudis monocephalis; foliis lineari-spathulatis, radicalibus in
petiolum attenuatis subtrinerviis subtus vel utrinque sericeo-canescentibus, superioribus viridulis;
involucri squamis biserialibus oblongis cano-villosis; receptaculo acute conico; pappi paleis 5obovato-rotundis integerrimis subito longiuscule aristatis. In mountains and rocky places near
Santa Antonita, New Mexico; October. Caudices 1 or 2 inches long, cespitose, clothed with
the scaly bases of former leaves mixed with villous hairs, as in other species; the slender and
loosely-branched flowering stems 8 or 9 inches high, 4-6-leaved. Leaves 1 or 2 inches long, 12
to 3 lines wide, the radical often spatulate and silky-canescent, at least beneath, nearly as in A.
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