CAPER FAMILY 13 



4. CLEOMELLA DC. 



Annuals. Leaves with 3 leaflets. Flowers yellow. Pods rhomboidal, few- 

 seeded and small, pendent or spreading on a long or short stipe and pedicel, ours 

 with the valves laterally distended or produced into short horns or rarely horn- 

 less. — Species about 12, North America. (Diminutive of Cleome.) 

 Flowers solitary and axillary ; capsule mostly deflexed on its pedicel. 



Leaves long-petioled, hirsutulose ; stipules scarious-laciniate, resembling a tuft of wool 



1. C. ohtusifolia. 



Leaves subsessile, glabrous; stipules none 2. C. brevipes. 



Flowers in racemes; herbage glabrous. 



Stipe almost obsolete, the pedicel elongated; stipules present 3. C. parviflora. 



Stipe and pedicel about equal, widely spreading or the stipe sometimes a little deflexed on 

 its pedicel; stipules none 4. C. plocasperma. 



1. C. obtusifolia Torr. & Frem. Mohave Stinkweed, Plants 5 to 10 inches 

 high, diffusely branched, or the trailing stems % to 3 feet long, with ascending 

 branchlets; stems glabrous, rarely hispid or scabrid; leaflets somewhat succulent, 

 obovate, thinly hirsutulose, 2 to 8 lines long, the apex with a mucro or hair; pedicels 

 3 to 4 lines long; calyx-lobes ovate, pilose-ciliate; petals bright lemon yellow or pale 

 orange, oblong, hispidulose on back of blade, narrowed to a short broad claw, 2i/^ 

 lines long, all 4 turned to upper side of flower or 2 of them spreading horizontally 

 right and left; stamens raised on a torus, exserted; capsule 3 to 4I/2 lines broad, its 

 valves conical, often produced into a short beak, or frequently rounded; stipe in 

 fruit 3 lines long, reflexed upon its pedicel. 



Sandy mesas or washes, 200 to 4000 feet : Inyo Co. and south to the Mohave 

 Desert and Colorado Desert. East to western Arizona. June- Aug. 



Field note. — The herbage has a noxious pervading odor. The narrowed bases of the two 

 upper petals have somewhat revolute margins, revolute in such a way as to form a sort of tubular 

 structure. The edges of the revolute portion of the petals are in some cases distinctly serrulate. 

 Doves feed on the seeds, whence the folk name "Dove Weed." 



Locs. — Keeler, J. Grinnell; Alabama Hills, Inyo Co., Jepson 919; Owens Lake, Jepson 

 5099; Searles Lake, Jepson 7154; Barstow, Jepson 4793; Rabbit Sprs., S. B. 4- W. F. Parish 

 1287; Box S Eanch, s. Mohave Desert, J. T. Howell 2680; Twenty-nine Palms, Jepson 12,631a; 

 San Felipe Wash (e. of Borrego Valley), Jepson 8900; Coyote Wells, s. Colorado Desert, Jepson 

 11,775. 



Var. pubescens Nels. Stems and foliage very pubescent. — Mohave Desert (Lancaster, 

 Greene; San Bernardino Mts., desert slope, Hart); Kern Co. (Walker Pass, Furpus 5562). 

 East to Nevada. 



"Var. jonesii Crum var. n. Flowers scattered in small axillary or terminal clusters. — (Flores 

 in fasciculis parvis, axillaribus vel terminalibus.) — Mohave Desert (Box S Eanch, Jones, type; 

 Hinckley, Jones) ; Colorado Desert (Coyote Wells, McGregor 143). 



Var. florifera Crum var. n. Flowers concentrated at the ends of the nearly paniculate 

 branches. (Inflorescentia terminalis, subpaniculata.) — Mohave Desert (Lancaster, Jones; Cush- 

 enbury Sprs., Jones; Newberry Sprs., Jones) ; Inyo Co. (Little Lake, Jones, type). 



Refs. — Cleomella obtusifolia Torr. & Frem.; Frem. 2d Rep. 311 (1845), type undoubtedly 

 from the Mohave Desert, Fremont, certainlv not collected "on the American fork of the Sacra- 

 mento River"; Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 229 (1901), Man. 408 (1925). C. taurocranos Nels. 

 Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 18:172 (1905), type loc. Colorado Desert, Orcutt 1484. Var. pubescens 

 Nels. 1. c, type loc. Mohave Desert, Engelmann; Jepson, Man. 408 (1925). C. pubescens Nels. 

 1. c. 173. Var. jonesii Crum. Var. florifeea Crum. 



2. C. brevipes Wats. Stem diffusely branched from the base, nearly glabrous, 

 2 to 10 inches high; leaves subsessile; leaflets linear, 4 to 6 lines long, or the upper 

 leaves simple and similar to the leaflets; flowers solitary in the axils of nearly all 

 the leaves; petals obovate, % line long; stamens shorter than petals; capsule 2 lines 

 broad, broader than long, its valves produced into short but distinct horns; pedicel 

 and stipe recurved, 1 to 2 lines long. 



Alkaline shores, salt meadows or washes, 2000 to 4000 feet : Mohave Desert 

 north to Inyo Co. East to western Nevada. May-July. The habit of the plant is 

 suggestive of an annual Suaeda. 



