PHACELIA FAMILY 235 



Meadows or moist slopes, 5000 to 6000 feet : Modoc Co. East to Utah, north to 

 Montana and British Columbia. May-July. 



Geog. note. — In the northern part of the Great Basin, Nemophila breviflora has a wide dis- 

 tribution. It occurs in Nevada and Utah, ranging northwards into Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, 

 eastern Oregon and eastern Washington, thence extending into British Columbia. As in the case 

 of many plants of the Great Basin flora, it enters the northeastern borders of California and has 

 been found in the following localities in the Warner Mts. of eastern Modoc Co. : Twelve-mile Creek, 

 Manning; Thorns Creek, Constance 2332. The cotyledons, % to 1% inches long, are remarkable 

 for size and persistence; in size their blades are 3 to 4^.^ lines wide, in duration they function 

 until anthesis or beyond. 



Eef s. — Nemophila breviflora Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 10:315 (1875), type loc. mts. of Utah, 

 Watson 869. Viticella breviflora Mcbr., Contrib. Gray Herb. 59:32 (1919). 



3. ELLISIAL. 



Annuals, similar to Nemophila. Leaves opposite (at least the lower) , pinnately 

 once parted. Flowers bractless, in axillary peduncled racemes or sometimes solitary 

 and axillary or terminal. Calyx usually much enlarg:ed in fruit, without bract-like 

 appendages at the sinuses, but often with the sinuses distended into spreading horn- 

 like or trough-like structures. Corolla white or blue, campanulate or rotate, the 

 internal scales conspicuous or minute or none. Ovules 4 to 8. Seeds not caruncu- 

 late. — Species 7, North America. (John Ellis, English botanist of the 18th century, 

 whom Linnaeus called "a bright star of natural history"). 



Species relationships. — Ellisia membranacea is in aspect so much like a Nemophila that in 

 the field it is constantly mistaken for a species of that genus by the unwary. In certain marked 

 respects it resembles plants long known as Nemophila aurita and N. racemosa. These three species 

 are alike habitally and in leafage. They are also alike in inflorescence. The flowers are borne in 

 loose 2 to 5-flowered peduncled racemes which arise from the axil of the leaf set at the base of the 

 terminal single-flowered peduncle. In all three species the seed is probably destitute of caruncle. 

 Ellisia membranacea differs markedly, however, from these other two species in that its corolla 

 is destitute of scales, its calyx is extremely different and is destitute of appendages. Its calyx, 

 indeed, is very similar to the calyx of Eucrypta chrysanthemif olia. Ellisia membranacea is, how- 

 ever, so near Ellisia nyctclea, the type of the genus Ellisia, that this nearness constrains retention 

 of Ellisia membranacea in Ellisia. Ellisia membranacea resembles Ellisia nyctelea not only in 

 habit, leafage and flowers but the corolla in both is destitute of scales, in both the seeds have no 

 caruncle. According to Asa Gray (Sj-n. Fl. 2:157) the peduncles of Ellisia nyctelea may be 

 1-flowered or racemosely flowered. Perhaps it were in the interests of a sounder phylogeny to 

 reduce Nemophila to Ellisia, which would in such case be markedly homogeneous in habit and 

 aspect and -ivithout any decisive technical cleavage. Eucrypta chrysanthemifolia in any case 

 stands apart ; it differs so sufficiently from either Nemophila or Ellisia that the acceptance by 

 E. L. Greene (in 1885) and L. Constance (in 1938) of NuttalPs genus Eucrypta is well taken. 



Calyx without appendages, its lobes round-obovate; coroUa-scales none; stems obscurely or mi- 

 nutely scabrous, or the roughish points obsolete 1. E. memhranacea. 



Calyx with the sinuses distended into spreading trough-like appendages, its lobes triangular- 

 lanceolate; corolla-scales present; stems armed with retrorsely curved prickles. 



Petioles broadly winged and auriculate-clasping; corolla 8 to 11 lines wide 2. E. aurita. 



Petioles not broadly winged nor auriculate-clasping; corolla 2 to 3 lines wide.. ..3. E. racemosa. 



1. E. membranacea Beuth. (Pig. 397.) Stems procumbent, 1 to 2 feet long ; 

 herbage glaucous, the leaves glabrous or slightly hispid or scaberulous with a few 

 short scattered stiff hairs, the stems glabrous or rarel.y (but the pedicels usually) 

 with a few minute recurved prickles on the angles ; leaf -blades ovate in outline or 

 often nearly as broad as long, 1 to 5 inches long, pinnately divided, witli 2 broad 

 lobes (obtuse at apex and broadest at base) spreading at right angles to the terminal 

 lobe, or often with 4 to 8 similar lateral lobes, the lobes remote; petioles wing- 

 margined ; racemes loosely 2 to 4-flowered, appearing as if terminal, but in reality 

 borne in the axil of the leaf at the base of a truly terminal 1-flowered peduncle ; calyx 

 without appendages, its lobes thinly ciliate-bristly ; corolla white with 1 (to 3) 

 small lance-shaped purple spots in the center of each lobe, 2 lines broad, no scales 

 in the throat but witli 10 glandular elevations; capsule often purple in age, with 

 several murieate prickles, 1 or 2-seeded ; seed globose, reticulated. 



