Regular Meeting, April 5th, 1863.

President in the Chair.

Present, ten members; and Mr. W. S. Moses, by invitation.

Donations to the Library:

Chart of the oscillations of the Sacramento River, by T. M. Logan, M.D. Proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, for September, 1862. Journal of the Boston Natural History Society, volume VII, Nos. 2 and 3.

Dr. Kellogg read the following paper:

Description of a New Genus and Species of Plant from Nevada Territory.

BY A. KELLOGG, M.D.

Pterostephanus Kellogg.

Involucre obconically-companulate; scales loosely imbricated in about two to three series; the exterior unequal, calyculate, suborbicular, oval, or oblong, obtuse; the inner series (of about eight) sub-equal, oblong-lanceolate, obtuse; scarious margins entire; (a broad, diffusely green line marks the centre). Receptacle naked, alveolate, alveoli, toothed. Achenia (mature wanting), oblong, sub-cuneate, or sub-obovate, somewhat compressed (?), slightly contracted at the crown, smooth, sub-pubescent above, on a short stipe. Pappus double; the exterior coroniform, persistent—a hyaline crateriform cup, with an even but minutely crenulate edge; interior of five (white) plumose, glabrous bristles, gradually dilating towards the base.

Californian herbs, with runcinately, pinnatifid, radical leaves, and numerous naked scapes, bearing solitary, tigulate, yellow flowers; closely allied to Malacothrix and Calycoseris, but with a plumose pappus.

P. runcinatus Kellogg. [Fig. 4.]

Fig. 4.

Acaulescent, several naked scapes, two to four inches high, sub-glabrous, (rarely a few scattering glandular hairs); leaves radical, runcinately pinnatifid, lobes spinulose, frosty, or sub-wooly, pubescent, three to seven-nerved, short petioles winged, dilated at the base; rosulate, from a simple perennial somewhat fusiform root.

Professor Whitney exhibited a new mass of meteoric iron, found near La Paz, on the Colorado River, in New Mexico, by Hermann Ehrenberg, Esq. A description and analysis will be furnished at a future meeting.