382 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
early deciduous, yellow or blue; stamens 5, united at the base and sometimes bearing 
5 alternating staminodia; pistil of 5 united carpels, each more or less 2-celled by a 
partial or complete membranous partition; seeds oily, 
KEY TO THE GENERA. 
Flowers blue; stigmas introrse, more or less elongated; 
sepals glandless .........-.....--.-...--2------ 1. Linum (p. 382.) 
Flowers yellow; stigmas capitate; sepals, at least the 
inner ones, glandular on the margins............ 2, CATHARTOLINUM (p. 382). 
1. LINUM L. Witp ruax. 
Slender perennial with several erect stems from a ligneous root, glabrous throughout, 
glaucescent, branching above; leaves small, 2 cm. long or less, sessile, oblong-lanceo- 
late; flowers large, on slender pedicels, bright blue; sepals broadly ovate, acute or 
obtuse, some of them with narrow membranous margins; petals obovate, early decid- 
uous; capsule spheroidal, with incomplete false septa; seeds flat. 
1. Linum lewisii Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 210. 1814. 
Linum perenne lewisti Eat. & Wright, N. Amer. Bot. 302. 1840, 
Type Locauity: ‘In the valleys of the Rocky-mountains and on the banks of the 
Missouri.”’ 
Rance: Alaska and British America to California, Texas, and Mexico. 
New Mexico: Higher mountains throughout the State. Meadows, in the Upper 
Sonoran and Transition zones, 
2. CATHARTOLINUM Reichenb. YrELtow FLAX. 
Annual or short-lived perennial herbs, with slender angled stems and small sessile 
leaves; flowers yellow, with persistent sepals and caducous petals; sepals acute to 
aristate, with fine gland-tipped teeth along the margins of at least some of them; 
capsules ovoid to spherical, the partitions mostly complete. 
KEY TO THE SPECIES, 
Styles distinct; flowers in virgate racemes ..........2........- 1. C. neomericanum, 
Styles more or less united; flowers corymbose. 
Stems puberulent. 
Plants stout, branched from the base; petals 10 mm. 
long or less. .... 2.2.2.2. 2.00202 eee eee eee ee -.- 2. C, puberulum, 
Plants slender, simple below; petals 13 to 15 mm. long. 3. (. vestitum. 
Stems glabrous. 
Petals 6 to9 mm, long -....................20222220- 4, C. australe. 
Petals 13 to 22 mm, long, 
Sepals not long-aristate; leaves numerous and im- 
bricated on the lower part of the stem... ... 5. CL vernale. 
Sepals long-aristate; leaves scattered along the stem, 
Plants slender, not leafy, the leaves narrow, 
mostly involute, thick -............... 6. C. aristatum. 
Plants stout, densely leafy, the leaves broad 
and thin .............0......202222202. 7. C. berlandieri. 
1. Cathartolinum neomexicanum (Greene) Small, N. Amer. Fl. 25: 73. 1907. 
Linum neomexicanum Greene, Bot. Gaz. 6: 183. 1881. 
TYPE Locauity: “In woods of Pinus ponderosa on the Pinos Altos Mountains,’’ New 
Mexico. Type collected in 1880 by E. L. Greene, 
