318 BORAGINACEAE 



inches long, the iipper leaf-blades ovate to oblong-lanceolate, the lower lanceolate 

 to linear ; stems branched at summit, the branches with discrete leaves and with 

 flowers borne singly on short branehlets in the leaf-axils, thus forming an open 

 panicle ; corolla 6 to 7 lines long, the limb 4 lines broad, the tube twice as long as 

 the calyx; sinuses of corolla-lobes open; anthers on very short filaments (sub- 

 sessile), inserted in lower part of throat, the style V2 as long as the corolla-tube or 

 a little exceeding the anthers ; nutlets similar to L. ruderale. 



Dry montane slopes, 1400 to 5000 feet : Sierra Nevada from Placer Co. to Shasta 

 Co.; North Coast Ranges from western Tehama Co. to western Shasta Co. and Del 

 Norte Co. North to southern Oregon. June. 



Locs. — Sierra Nevada: Cape Horn, Placer Co., K. Brandegee ; Spanish Creek, Plumas Co., 

 Ball 9279; Brush Creek, Butte Co., Conger; Afterthought Mine, Shasta Co., M. S. BaTcer ; Duns- 

 muir, Siskiyou Co., Condit. Coast Ranges: Government Flat, Yollo Bolly Mts., Bacigalupi 4" 

 Kraebel; French Gulch, sw. Shasta Co., Blasdale ; Sisson, Siskiyou Co., Jepson 21,072; Gasquet, 

 Del Norte Co., Tracy 11,211. 



Refs. — LiTHOSPERMUM CALiroRNlcuM Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 10:51 (1874), type loc. Grass 

 Valley, Nevada Co., Bigelow. L. ruderale var. calif ornicum Jepson, Man. 843 (1925). 



LiTHOSPERMUM ARVENSE L., Sp. PI. 132 (1753) , type European ; Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 441 

 (1901). Annual; nutlets wrinkled-tuberculate. — Adventive at San Francisco (Man. Reg. S. F. 

 Bay 263). 



10. AMSINCKIA Lehm. 



Annuals with rough-hairy herbage, the hairs commonly with a pustulate-dilated 

 base, which is often conspicuously hardened or granular. Flowers yellow, in elon- 

 gated scorpioid spikes. Calyx-lobes 5, or 4 or 3 through the more or less complete 

 union of two into one. Corolla yellow or orange, funnelform or salverform, the 

 throat destitute of crests or processes, rarely with palate-like folds. Nutlets crus- 

 taceous, triquetrous or ovate-triangular, smooth or rough. Cotyledons deeply 

 2-parted. — Species about 12, North and South America. (Wm. Amsiuck of Ham- 

 burg, e. 1830, patron of the Botanic Garden in that city.) 



Geog. note. — On the basis of number of species and varieties and forms, degree of variability 

 and abundance of individuals, the center of distribution of the genus Amsinckia is to be found 

 in the inner South Coast Range and its immediately bordering plains or valleys. All of our species 

 occur in this range save two which inhabit near-by areas, namely: Amsinckia spectabilis of the 

 not distant coast line and Amsinckia glomerata which grows on the lower San Joaquin VaUey 

 plain east of the inner range. Most varieties of these species, as herein described, occur also in 

 the inner South Coast Range or on the San Joaquin Valley plain. 



Over several square yards, here and there, of open hills in the inner South Coast Range, over 

 many acres or even square miles, Amsinckia douglasiana establishes pure colonies in its season, 

 which are often sharply defined against other vegetation. For many leagues along the entire 

 length of the Temblor I?ange, Amsinckia tessellata is a dominant in the hills, a dominant in the 

 main so exclusive in its areas that the slopes are marked for long distances in mid-April or in 

 May by a belt of red-brown color which arises, not from its flowers, but by reason of the maturing 

 action of the sun on its leafage. Amsinckia intermedia, the most widespread species, is often 

 extremely abundant on valley floors. On the other hand, Amsinckia grandiflora, a narrow endemic 

 of the Mount Diablo hills and their bordering valleys, is at the present time a rarity. 



In his Synoptical Flora, Asa Gray spoke of the Amsinckia intermedia group of species as 

 difficult to discriminate. By reason of variability they are, but they are by no means so variable 

 as the recent synonymy here cited would imply. The binomials of the synonymy belong mainly 

 to W. N. Suksdorf. He made one brief journey to California and as a result of that journey 

 published a large number of segregates in Amsinckia. It is of significance that his proposed 

 species in each case rest almost exclusively upon a single collection and that his naming of other 

 material, as in the case of a very long series in the University of California Herbarium, is almost 

 always accompanied by a mark of doubt, an expression of reluctance or by qualifying words, — 

 which circumstance has some interest in connection with the considerable number of his species 

 reduced to synonymy in the following treatment. 



Amsinckia is a natural genus in which generic resemblance throughout the series is very much 

 more pronounced than the development of differentiating marks for species. Nevertheless, each 

 species or varietal group may fairly well be characterized liy features of the corolla, position of 

 the stamens, or shape or markings of tlie nutlets. The corolla throughout the genus is extremely 

 constant in form, but its variations in size are reasonably uniform within each named forni. 

 The nutlets, from one point of view, are highly variable, but in spite of this variation certain 



