396 POLEMONIACEAE 



tending into a fleshy turgid apiculation at apex ; corolla-tube campanulate in anthesis, urceolate 

 in fruit, scarcely 2 mm. high, the lobes spreading-recurved, usually fleshy at tip ; scales oblong, 

 shortly fringed above ; stamens shorter than the lobes, anthers oval about equaling the short 

 filaments, often red; stigmas linear, slender, together w^ith the short stylelonger than the ovary; 

 capsule depressed-globose, enveloped by the withered corolla, circumscissile ; seeds usually 4, 

 scarcely 1 mm. long, granulated. 



Native of the Old World, but becoming widely distributed in North America, where it is most commonly 

 parasitic on introduced weeds and some legumes, especially alfalfa. Washington, Oregon, and northern Cali- 

 fornia, east to Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. July-Oct. 



Family 128. POLEMONlACEAE * 



Phlox Family. 



Annual or perennial herbs or shrubs or vines. Leaves simple or palmately cleft 

 or pinnately incised, lobed or dissected, or compound, sometimes pungent or entirely 

 bracteate, opposite or alternate. Inflorescence usually a paniculate, glomerate, or 

 flat-topped cyme, or the flowers congested in densely bracteate heads, rarely solitary, 

 with flowers with 5-merous, rarely 4- or 6-merous perianth and androecium, the 

 gynoecium typically 3-merous. Calyx herbaceous to variously membranous or 

 chartaceous, accrescent or sometimes distended or ruptvired by the growing capsule ; 

 variously cleft to the herbaceous tube (herein called the tube proper), or cleft to 

 the base, the lobes free or more commonly the membranes of their margins coalesced 

 to form a tube of varying length (herein called the pseudotube) superimposed above 

 the tube proper, or the tube proper absent and only the pseudotube present. Corolla 

 sympetalous, campanulate to funnelform or salverform, the tube from nearly 

 obsolete to 3-6 cm. long; throat usually evident, exceeding or shorter than tube 

 and herein said to be ample when its sides form an angle of more than 60 degrees 

 with one another and narrow when they form an angle of less than 60 degrees. 

 Stamens equally or unequally inserted on the corolla, their filaments equal or 

 unequal. Ovary 3-celled, rarely 2- or 1 -celled, style simple, stigma-lobes usually 

 3, rarely 2, 4, or 1. Fruit a capsule, usually regularly dehiscent, rarely indehiscent. 

 Seeds from 1 to many. 



About IS genera and over 200 species, most abundant in western North America. 



Calyx growing with the capsule, becoming chartaceous in age. 



Calyx green-herbaceous throughout, the sinuses not distended; leaves pinnately compound, the leaflets 



lanceolate; locules of the capsule capanulately spreading, not folded. 1. Polemonium. 



Calyx often white-chartaceous below; the sinuses replicate or distended as the lip of a pitcher; leaves 

 entire, lobed, parted, or bipinnately dissected; locules of the capsule campanulately spreading on 

 dehiscence, their margins folded back on the midvein. 2. Collomia. 



Calyx distended and often bursting by the growth of the capsule, commonly with a membranous pseudotube 

 formed by the coalescence of the membranes flanking the sepals. 

 Leaves all involucral or bracteate. connate or perfoliate at the base, true foliage leaves absent; cotyledons 

 persistent; capsule-valves membranous, disarticulating on dehiscence; diminutive annuals. 



3. Gymnoiteris. 

 Leaves either cauline or basal or both, sometimes also bracteate. 



Leaves opposite, sometimes those in the inflorescence alternate. 



Leaves entire; corollas strictly salverform; stamens unequally inserted; capsule- valves completely 



disarticulating on dehiscence. 4. Phlox. 



Leaves chiefly palmately cleft, rarely entire, then linear-filiform; corollas campanulate to funnel- 

 form or salverform then with a short throat; stamens equally inserted; capsule-valves 

 persistent below after dehiscence, campanulately spreading. S. Linanthus. 



Leaves alternate, rarely those at the extreme base of the plant opposite. 

 Calyx-lobes unequal, the flowers in dense bracteate heads. 



Plants arachnoid-woolly, the hairs completely interlaced to form a compact felt-like mass over at 

 least the inflorescence; capsules dehiscent from the top; leaves and bracts rarely with 

 rigid spinose lobes. 6. Eriastrum. 



Plants glandular to glabrous or occasionally villous, the hairs though sometimes shaggy never 

 interlaced in a felt-like mat; capsules dehiscent from below upward or indehiscent, 

 rarely dehiscent above; leaves and bracts usually with rigid spinose lobes._ 



7. Navarretia. 

 Calyx-lobes equal, flower solitary, in glomerules or in heads. 



Corolla markedly 2-lipped or the petals at least somewhat unequal. 



Annuals, the leaves with their lobes setose or spine-tipped. 8. Langloisia. 



Perennials, the corolla scarlet, leaves in ours neither setose nor spine-tipped. 



9. Loeselia. 

 Corolla regular. 



Leaves spinose or linear-acerose-lobed, palmately to subpinnately parted, densely fascicled; 

 perennial shrubs or subshrubs. 10. Leptodactylon. 



Leaves not spinose, pinnately lobed, divided or dissected, sometimes entire, rarely the 

 teeth setose or spine-tipped; biennials, annuals, or very shortlived perennials. 



11. Cilia. 



* Text, except for the genus Polemonium and the genus Gilia written jointly with Alva Day Grant, contributed 

 by Herbert Louis Mason. 



