456 soijAnaceae 



Sandy flats, 3800 to 5000 feet : Owens Valley, Inyo Co. East and north to 

 Nevada and Idaho. May. 



Locs. — Aberdeen, 4 mi. se. (Lflts. W. Bot. 2 :271). Nev. : Belleville, Esmeralda Co., Shockley 

 272; Wadsworth, Stokes. 



Eefs. — Oryctes nevadensis Wats., Bot. King 274, pi. 28, figs. 5-10 (1871), type loo. Vir- 

 ginia Mts. (e. base, near Big Bend of the Truckee River), Nev., Watson 941; Wettstein in Engler 

 & Prantl, Nat. Pflzfam. 4=»>:12, figs. 6d-e (1895). 



3. PETUNIA Juss. 



Viscid herbs with small entire leaves, the upper disposed to be opposite. Flow- 

 ers as if solitary in the axils (really a sympodial inflorescence, each flower termi- 

 nal). Calyx deeply 5-parted. Corolla funnelform. Stamens 5, conspicuously 

 unequal, 2 long, 2 shorter and a fifth still shorter, all inserted low in the corolla-tube. 

 Capsule ovoid, its valves elongating and separating from the partition. — Species 

 27, chiefly South America, only a few in North America. (Petun, an Indian name 

 of tobacco.) 



1. P. parviflora Juss. Prostrate annual, the stems diffusely branched from 

 the base, 4 to 13 inches long; herbage scantily puberulent; leaf-blades linear- to 

 oblong-oblanceolate, 2 to 8 lines long; calyx-lobes linear, almost distinct; corolla 

 purplish-red or purplish-blue, 21,4 to 4 lines long, a white distended cii'cular spot 

 on the upper side, the lobes apiculate ; fruiting calyx twice as long as the capsule ; 

 stigma capitate ; seeds reticulated. 



Dried beds of former pools and sandy stream "bottoms," 5 to 700 feet : Colorado 

 Desert; coastal Southern California; South Coast Ranges; Sacramento Valley. 

 East to Arizona, Texas and southern Florida ; also in South America. Apr .-Aug. 



Note on indigenous status. — Apparently Petunia parviflora was collected by none of the 

 early expeditions to California (1789-1860) and, it would seem, somewhat rarely from 1860 to 

 1900. It has been, therefore, thought by some, including the writer, to be an immigrant from 

 warm-temperate regions in the Americas. It is, however, an obscure and easily overlooked weed- 

 like plant. Gray makes it a native in California and describes it as "common on the seashore from 

 Monterey Bay south" (Bot. Cal. 1:546, — 1876). Parish in 1890 develops and extends this point 

 of view (Zoe 1 :302). The first collection here available is that in 1861 from Mt. Diablo (Brewer 

 835). Greene gathered it at Sacramento, doubtless about 1875. The following collections were 

 all made since 1880, mostly since 1900. None of these stations is necessarily indicative of a native 

 habitat, but the present evidence evaluates Petunia parviflora as a native along our southern 

 borders with the probability that the stations in the South Coast Eanges and Sacramento Valley 

 represent modern immigration northward. There is here cited the following localities. S. Cal.: 

 Fort Yuma, Parish 8322; Escondido, C. V. Meyer 458; San Luis Rey River, near Pala, Parish 

 4400; Santa Ana River (mouth), L. IT. Booth 1378; Oxnard, Ventura Co., Condit 24; Bletchers 

 Bay, Santa Rosa Isl., Abrams # Wiggins 258. South Coast Ranges: Arroyo Grande, San Luis 

 Obispo Co., Alice King; Salinas River near Salinas, R. J. Smith 28; Coyote sta., Santa Clara Co., 

 Jepson 6197. 



Petunia, generally, is a genus of plants with showy flowers. Our species is a marked excep- 

 tion. In his monograph. Die Arten der Gattung Petunia (Sven. Vet. Akad. Handl. 46:1-72, t. 

 1-7, — 1911), Robert E. Fries says of Petunia parviflora: "Sie hat von alien Petunien die klein- 

 ste Blute." 



Refg. — Petunia pabviplora Juss., Ann. Mus. Paris, 2:216, t. 47 (1803), near mouth of the 

 La Plata River, S. Am.; Jepson, Man. 888 (1925). 



4. DATURA. L. Thorn- Apple 



Ours coarse rank-smelling herbs. Leaf-blades large (mostly 3 to 10 inches 

 long), ovate, mostly sinuate-dentate, petioled. Flowers large, solitary on short 

 peduncles in the forks of the branching stem. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, in our spe- 

 cies at length cutting through near the base, the lower part persisting as a collar 

 or rim beneath the capsule. Corolla funnelform with ample limb, convolute- 

 plicate in the bud. Stamens included ; filaments long. Stigma bilamellate. Cap- 

 sule spiny, 4-valved from the top or dehiscing irregularly; placentae projecting 



