Mertensia. BORRAGINACE.E. 199 



Plagiobothrys, intermediate between that group and Antiphytum, hirsute, hardly 

 hispid, branched from the base ; the steins or branches diffuse, a span or two 

 high ; leaves spatulate-linear, all alternate ; scorpioid spikes slender and at length 

 remotely flowered, bractless, or with some scattered foliaceous bracts : white corolla 

 with lobes sometimes almost convolute in the bud. Gray in Benth. & Hook. 

 Gen. ii. 854 ; Proc. Am. Acad. xi. 89, xii. 163. 



E. Arizonica, Gray, 1- c. Lobes of the corolla a line or less long ; the throat somewhat 

 narrowed by very small and rather obscure intrusive folds : nutlets attenuate and much 

 compressed at apex, sparsely cristate-muricate, hardly longer than their thick basal stipes, 

 which are united at base in pairs over the prominent receptacle, the pair with a very large 

 excavated scar. Arizona, on the Verde Mesa, Dr. Smart. Also near Tucson, Greene. 



E. Calif ornica, Gray. Corolla larger ; the orbicular lobes a line or two in length ; the 

 throat closed by strong andpuberulent intrusive appendages : nutlets smaller (a line long), 

 less acute, coarsely rugose-alveolate and the sharp elevated rugosities often echinulate ; 

 the stipes supra-basal, all four wholly distinct, laterally compressed, shorter than the 

 diameter of the nutlet ; the small caruncular scar concave. Proc. Am. Acad. xii. 164. 

 San Bernardino Co., S. E. California, Parry & Lemmon, no. 278, coll. 187(3. 



14. ANTfPHYTUM, DC., partly. (Jlrri, opposite, and qpvrdv, plant; 

 the leaves in the typical species being all opposite, in this unlike most of the 

 order.) Restricted in Benth. & Hook. Gen. PI. ii. 859 to Brazilian species, all 

 suffruticose and opposite-leaved, with short-stipitate areola to the nutlets. But 

 the subjoined species exhibit the characters of the genus in a lesser degree. - 

 Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. x. 54. (In separating from the insertion, a delicate 

 funicle-like process, which penetrated a minute central perforation of the scar, 

 persists on the flat gynobase.) 



A. heliotropioid.es, A. DC. Woody perennial ? a foot or two high, paniculately much 

 branched, softly strigose-hirsute and at least when young canescent : leaves linear, an inch 

 or less long ; the lower mainly opposite : flowers rather small and scattered, on filiform 

 pedicels much longer than the calyx, the lobes of which are oblong-linear : corolla almost 

 rotate, with conspicuous crests in the open throat : stigma capitate : scar of the nutlets 

 large and sessile, but edged with an acute salient margin ; the minute perforation above 

 its centre. Prodr. x. 122; Gray, 1. c. Eritrichium heliotropt aides, Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. 

 140, as to the plant of Berlandier only. San Carlos, on the Mexican side of the Rio 

 Grande, close to Texas. Turgid nutlets only half a line long, not (as in the next) con- 

 tracted behind the scar. 



A. floribundum, Gray, 1. c. Herbaceous from a " perennial " or perhaps biennial root, 

 a foot or two high, paniculately branched above, cinereous with fine and close and with a 

 coarser nearly hispid pubescence : leaves perhaps all alternate, narrowly linear, an inch or 

 so long ; the upper gradually diminished to linear-subulate bracts : flowers very short- 

 pedicelled, in short panicled racemes or spikes : lobes of the calyx linear-lanceolate, acu- 

 minate : corolla rotate-campanulate (3 lines in diameter), not appendaged in the throat : 

 filaments longer than the anthers : stigma 2-lobed : nutlets granulate, acute ; the salient 

 ventral edge terminated a little above the base of the nutlet by the small and protuberant 

 or slightly stipitate scar. Eritrichium floribundum, Torr. I.e. South-western Texas, on 

 or near the Rio Grande, in the mountains of Puerte de Paysano, Bigelow. Flowers some- 

 times 6-merous. 



15. MERTENSIA, Roth. (Francis Charles Mertens, a German botanist, 

 1797.) Perennials, of the cooler parts of the northern hemisphere, either gla- 

 brous and remarkably smooth, or with some soft or moderately scabrous pubes- 

 cence ; the leaves commonly broad, and the lowermost petioled ; the flowers 

 commonly handsome, blue, purple, or rarely white, paniculate-racemose or cymose, 



