46 VALERIANACE^. Valerianella. 



fruit meniscoidal or saucer-shaped, the expanded and flattened sterile cells forming a kind 

 of wing, or at length this incurved at base, or also at summit, and so nearly passing into 

 var. umhilicata. — V. patellaria, Krok, 1. c. 67, t. 3, f. 24. Fedia patellaria, Hulliv. 1. c. 

 V. radiata, Shiittlew. in Flora, 1837, 209, t. 3. Fedia radiata, var. patellaria, Porter, 1. c. 

 387, fig. 106. — Ohio {SuUicant), Pennsylvania, &c. 



§ 2. SiPHONELLA, Krok. Corolla salverform ; the slender tube double or 

 quadruple the length of the obscurely bilabiate-irregular limb, commonly bear- 

 ing a minute boss or incipient spur near middle or base, sometimes with none ; 

 lobes oblong, the two posterior slightly more united and averse from the three 

 anterior : stamens 3 : fruit with divergent empty cells much larger than the fer- 

 tile : habit and inflorescence of the preceding : bracts ciliate with gland-tipped 

 denticulations. — Gray, 1. c. 82. Fedia § Siphonella, Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 50. 

 (Species referred to Plectritis by Nutt. in herb.) 



v. longiflora, Walp. Leaves ligulate-oblong and lower ones spatulate : cymes glomerate, 

 many-tlowered, corymbosely disposed : tube of corolla nearly filiform, 4 or 5 lines long, not 

 rarely with a small boss at base, purplish or pink, 3 or 4 times the length of the lobes : fruit 

 nearly orbicular in outline, somewhat meniscoidal; the semioval empty cells coriaceous with 

 membranous face, parallel-contiguous and separated by a narrow partition, but widely diver- 

 ging, each larger than the oblong obtusely short-tipped fertile one. — Repert. ii. 527 ; Krok, 

 Monogr. 1. c. 97, t. 4, f . 46. Fedia longiflora, Torr. & Gray, 1. c. — Low rocky grounds, N. W. 

 Arkansas, Nuttall, Engelmann, Ilarveij. 



V. Nuttallii, Walp. 1. c. Tube of the white or cream-colored corolla only about twice the 

 length of the limb, bearing a little boss near the middle : fertile cell with a narrow soft 

 projecting tip. — Krok, 1. c. Fedia Nuttallii, Torr. & Gray, 1. c. — Plains of Arkansas, 

 Nuttall, Engelmann. Handsome in cultivation, a span or two liigh, very floriferous. 



§ 3. Plectritis, Lindl. Corolla with either manifestly or very obscurely 

 bilabiate limb ; proper tube shorter than the broadly or narrowly funnelform 

 throat, which bears a descending spur at its base, this iu one species obsolete or 

 wanting : fruit one-celled, its body triangular or nearly so, one angle dorsal, the 

 lateral angles bearing wings (these in place of the two empty cells, and appar- 

 ently formed by their early separation and evolution from the middle of the ven- 

 tral face), or in one species wingless : calyx-limb none : plants all nearly alike 

 in herbage and thyrsoid-glomerate inflorescence ; the cymules condensed into a 

 caiiituliform or interrupted spiciform glomerule terminating stem or branches, 

 and commonly one to three others verticillastrate at the nodes or axils below : 

 flowers rose-color or white : all Pacific-American. — Bot. Reg. t. 1094; Gray, 

 Proc. Am. Acad. xix. 83. Plectritis & Betckea, DC. 1. c. Plectritis, Benth. & 

 Hook. 



* Fruit somewhat meniscoidal, only obtusely angled dorsally: cotyledons incumbent, i. e. parallel 

 to the ventral face and expanded wings. 



V. macrocera, Gray. Flowers small, commonly in 2 to 4 somewhat distant and spicately 

 disposed verticillastrate clusters : corolla narrow, white or pinkish, only a line or two long, 

 with spur sometimes as long as the throat or body, sometimes only half its length ; limb 

 somewhat equally spreading and liardly at all bilabiate, or equally 4-lobed and posterior 

 lobe emarginate-bifid : fruit commonly glabrous or puberulent, obtuse or even lightly lin- 

 eate-sulcate on the dorsal angle, the broad wing of orbicular circumscription, sometimes 

 spreading or very open, so that the ventral face is saucer-shaped, sometimes incurved so 

 that it is acetabuliform. — Proc. Am. Acad. xix. 83. Plectritis congesta, var. minor, Hook. 



' Fl. i. 291. P. inacroccra, Torr. & Gray, Fl. ii. 50 ; Gray, Bot. Calif, i. 287, excl. syn. Fisch. 

 & Meyer. — Dry ground, Washington Terr, to S. California, Nevada, and Arizona. Varies 

 much in length and thickness of the spur, also in that of the tulnilar part of the corolla 

 below the spur, which is sometimes slender ana stipe-like, sometimes short. 



