Amsonia. APOCYNACE/E. 81 



1. VALLESIA, Ruiz & Pav. (Francis Vattesio, a Spanish physician.) 

 Glabrous shrubs ; with alternate leaves, and small terminal or soon lateral cymes 

 of small flowers. Calyx not glanduliferous within. Prodr. Fl. Per. 28, t. 5. 

 The principal species is 



V. glabra, Cav. Leaves coriaceous and somewhat fleshy, shining, almost veinless, 

 oblong or oblong-lanceolate, acute, short-petioled, about 2 inches long : corolla white, -3 lines 

 long : drupes half inch long, dry, slender, often single. Ic. iii. t. 297. V. dichotoma, Ruiz & 

 Pav. (Fl. Per. ii. 20, 1. 151 ) & V. chiococcotdcs (IIBK.) ; A. DC. Prodr. viii. 349. Key West, 

 Florida. (W. Ind. to Lower Calif, and Chili.) 



2. AMSONIA, Walt. (Dedicated to Charles Amson.) --Perennial herbs (E. 

 North America and Japan) ; with very numerous menibranaceous and alternate 

 leaves, varying from ovate to linear, and rather compact small cymes of blue or 

 bluish flowers in a terminal thyrsus : fl. spring and early summer. Inside of the 

 tube of the corolla below the stamens beset with reflexed hairs. Liber of tough 

 fibres, as in Apocynum, &c. 



1. Stigma with depressed-capitate or truncate entire apex: corolla not con- 

 stricted under the limb : eastern species. 



A. Tabernsemontana, ^Af alt. About 3 feet high, glabrate : leaves from ovate to 

 lanceolate, acuminate (2 to 5 inches long), distinctly petioled, pale beneath : calyx very 

 small : corolla in the bud slender-beaked by the convolute limb ; its lobes lanceolate, 

 becoming linear and as long as the tube ; the latter at first mostly villous at the enlarging 

 summit: follicles slender, 2 or 3 inches long. Car. 98; A. DC. Prodr. viii. 385. (Tabernce- 

 montana Amsonia, L.) A. lulifolia, Michx. Fl. i. 121 ; Bot. Reg. t. 151. A. tristis, Smith in 

 Rees Cycl. A. salicifolia, Pursh, Fl. i. 184 ; Bot. Mag. 1. 1873 ; A.DC. 1. c., with var. ciliolata. 

 Low grounds, N. Carolina and Illinois to Florida and Texas. 



A. angustifolia, Michx. Stems (1 to 3 feet high) and commonly inflorescence and 

 leaves (or at least their margins) when young villous with loose hairs, these deciduous : 

 leaves much crowded, linear-lanceolate to narrowly linear (an inch or two long, half line 

 to 4 lines wide), indistinctly petioled, the margins at length somewhat revolute : calyx 

 small and short : corolla glabrous outside; its funnelform tube (3 or 4 lines long) little 

 longer than the ovate-oblong or at length linear-oblong lobes : follicles slender and even, 

 2 to 5 inches long. Fl. i. 121 ; Pursh, 1. c. Taberncemantana angustifolia, Ait. Kew. ed. 1, 

 i. 300 (1789). Amsonia dliutu, Walt. Car. (1788), 98 ; A.DC. 1. c. ; Chapm. Fl. 300 ; a decep- 

 tive specific name, and barely the older. Dry soil, N. Carolina to Florida and Texas. 



Var. Texana. A foot or two high from creeping woody subterranean shoots, com- 

 pletely glabrous : leaves of firmer texture, lanceolate-oblong to linear. Texas, in rocky 

 prairies and at the base of limestone hills, Pope, Linclheimer, E. Hall, &c. 



2. Stigma apiculate with two distinct obtuse lobes above the truncate body : 

 tube of the corolla clavate, being constricted (at least in bud) under the conspicu- 

 ously shorter limb : calyx deeply o-parted into slender-subulate lobes (2 or 3 

 lines long) : stems lower, more branching, and bearing smaller or simpler cymes : 

 western species. 



* Follicles torose, inclined to break into thickish articulations : corolla rather short. 

 A. brevifolia, Gray. About a foot high, glabrous : leaves thickish, ovate, varying 

 above to lanceolate, nearly sessile by a narrowed base (8 to 18 lines long) : lobes of the 

 corolla ovate or becoming oblong, 2 or 3 lines long, nearly half the length of the tube ; 

 the throat bearded only within the constricted orifice : mass of the stigma between the 

 ring and the apical lobes longer than wide : follicles 2 or 3 inches long, thickish, irregu- 

 larly moniliform, chartaceous, and disposed to break into one-seeded joints. Proc. Am. 

 Acad. xii. 04. Southern Utah and W. Arizona to the border of California, Mrs. Thompson, 

 Parry, Palmer. 



A. tomentosa, Torr. A foot or more high, cinereous-tomentose or puberulent, varying 

 to glabrous : leaves from lanceolate to narrowly linear, sessile : lobes of the corolla oblong, 



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