Nolina cismontana (Nolinaceae), a New Species Name for an Old Taxon William J. Hess The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois 60532, U.S.A. James C. Dice California Department of Fish and Game, P.O. Box 2537, Borrego Springs, California 92004, U.S.A.ABSTRACT. Nolina parryi subsp. wolfii is shownto be a synonym of N. parryi subsp. parryi. Con-sequently, N. parryi subsp. parryi sensu Munz hasbeen misinterpreted and is without a name. Nolinacismontana is proposed as the name for this un-described taxon. It is necessary to publish a new name for Nolinaparryi S. Watson sensu Munz before volume 11 ofthe Flora of North America is published. The juniorauthor studied the California Nolina species complexfor his M.S. thesis (Dice, 1988). He determined thatthe name N. parryi was assigned by western bot-anists to the wrong plants, and consequently theseplants are unnamed. Munz (in Munz & Roos, 1950) described Nolinaparryi subsp. wolfii based on plants from the Kings-ton Range in the eastern Mojave Desert and theSan Jacinto/Santa Rosa Mountains along the north-western edge of the Colorado Desert. Plants fittingthis description are now known to extend from theKern Plateau in southern Tulare County south tothe Laguna and Pinyon Mountains of San DiegoCounty, California. The taxon is found in the drierparts of the Peninsular Ranges, along the westernedge of the Colorado Desert and in the desert rangesof the Mojave Desert. This means that by this in-terpretation subspecies parryi occurs in the coastaldrainages below 3000 feet from Ventura to SanDiego counties and west of subspecies wolfi. Thereis no evidence that Munz ever examined the typeof N. parryi. Dice examined the holotypes andisotypes of subspecies parryi and subspecies wolfii.The holotype of subspecies parryi and Watson's(1879) publication of its description indicate that N.parryi came from the desert east of San Bernardinoand not from the coastal side of the mountains. Theleaves on this holotype and isotype are wider thanwhat Munz allows for his subspecies parryi andwould key out in his keys to subspecies wolfii. Sub-species wolfii is a synonym for Watson's typical N.NovoN 5: 162-164. 1995.parryi, and the plants from the coastal drainagesthat Munz was calling subspecies parryi are withouta name. Dice (1988) showed that there are quantitativemorphological traits such as leaf number per rosette,stem length, leaf width, panicle length, panicle stalkdiameter, and bract size that help to differentiateNolina parryi from N. cismontana. Besides thegeographical difference stated above, N. parryi isfound on granite and granodiorite-derived substratesin the xeric pinyon-juniper woodlands, while N. cis-montana occurs principally on sandstone and shalesubstrates of chaparral vegetation. The morpholog-ical, geographical, and ecological differences to uswarrant the recognition at the species level of thecoastal foothills and valleys taxon.Nolina cismontana Dice, sp. nov. TYPE: U.S.A. California: Orange Co., Santa Ana Mts., Tra-buco Canyon, 350 m, 1986, J. Dice & T. Oberbauer 650 [staminate] (holotype, SD 121705; isotypes, ARIZ, NY, RSA, UC). A specie Nolina parryi caulibus brevibus, generaliter < 0.4 m longis; rosulis amplitudine mediocribus, gener-aliter ex 30-90 foliis constantibus; foliis latitudine me-diocribus, 12-30 mm latis accurate super basem expan-sum; pedunculo inflorescentiae 14-35 mm diametro basi differt. Shrubs to subshrubs, 0.5-1.5 m tall, few-to many-branched from a woody caudex, branching both above and below ground, with 1-30(-75) leaf rosettes; mature rosettes 0.7-1.6 m diam. with 30-90 leaves per rosette. Leaves green (occasionally glaucous) lance-linear, 0.5-1.4 m long at maturity and 1.2-3 cm wide just above the expanded leaf base; leaf bases white, deltoid-rhomboidal, spoon-shaped, 4-11.5 cm long and 3-8.5 cm wide at base; leaf margins serrulate. Inflorescences large, 1.3-3.1 m tall, 10-40 cm wide, with 25-75 sec-ondary panicle branches, longest secondary branch 13-35 cm long, longest tertiary branch 1-10 cm