Tab. 6402. 



ARGEMONE hispida. 



Native of Colorado and California. 



Nat. Ord. Papaverace^;. — Tribe Eupapaverace^e. 

 Genus Argemone Linn.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PL, vol. i. p. 52). 



Argemone hispida ; erecta, hispido-setosa, glabra v. pubescens, glauca, radice 

 perenni, caule robusto, foliis pinnatindis caulinis semianiplexicaulibus, 

 inferioribus petiolatis, floribus amplis albis, capsula oblonga l}-pollicari 

 aculeata. 



A.bispida, A. Gray, Plant. Fendl.Tp.5; Walp. Ann, vol. ii. p. 23; Watson. 

 Bot. Calif, vol. i. p. 21. 



A. munita, Dar. andHilg. in Journ. Acad. Philad. vol. ii. part. 3, p. 37 ; Walp. 

 Ann. vol. iv. p. 170, and vol. vii. p. 86. 



A. mexicana, Engelm. in Wisliz. Bep. p. 3 ; Porter et Coulter, Flor. Colorado, p. (i. 



A. mexicana, var. hispida, Torrey, Mesne. Bound. Survey, p. 81. 



This fine plant is, during its flowering season, the greatest 

 ornament of the vegetation of Colorado, where it occurs in 

 open grassy and stony places in great profusion, flowering 

 for three months of the year. It also extends into New 

 Mexico to the south, and westward into Utah, Nevada, and 

 Central California. As a species it will, I fear, prove difficult 

 to distinguish from the widely-diffused golden-flowered 

 A. mexicana, that is, if the A. albiflora be really referable to 

 a form of that plant, for all the Argemone species or forms 

 are excessively sportive in habit, in hispidity, in the form of 

 the leaves, size of the flowers, and size and hispidity of the 

 capsule. The specimen of A. hispida, from which our drawing 

 was taken, was nearly glabrous, but New Mexican ones pre- 

 served in the Herbarium (Fendler, No. 16) are very pubescent; 

 it is, indeed, described as having a perennial root, but that of 

 A. mexicana, I believe, is at times more than annual, and its 

 var. albiflora has been described as perennial. 



DECEMBER 1ST, 1878. 



