﻿New Plants From Wyoming.— IV. 



By A yen Nelson. 



GlLIA CAESPITOSA (Nutt.). 



Gilia pungens caepitosa A. Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. 8 : 268 



1870. 



Leptodactylon caespitosum Nutt. J 



157- 



1847. 



Perennial, densely caespitose, the much-branched woody base 

 hardly emergent from the soil : stems numerous and very short, 

 clothed with the persistent crowded leaves : leaves alternate, pal- 

 mately 3 -parted (rarely 5-parted), densely fascicled, rigid, subulate- 

 pungent, 5-7 mm. long, nearly glabrous or somewhat ciliate on the 

 margins, green as to the new leaves, the short stems gray with the 

 persistent dead ones : flowers numerous : calyx one-half the length 

 of the corolla tube, its lobes 4 (rarely 5), acerose : corolla white to 

 yellowish, salverform, tube very slender and but little dilated at 

 the throat, about 1 2 mm. long, lobes 4, narrowly obovate, about 

 4 mm. long : stamens 4, filaments short, anthers in the throat : 



pistil less than half the length of the corolla-tube, styles 2 or 

 rarely 3. 



That this plant should have become associated with Gilia 

 pungens can be accounted for only by assuming that Dr. Gray had 

 at hand nothing but scrappy specimens. The two plants in the 

 field do not suggest each other. This grows in low, broad mats, 

 a foot or two across and hardly raised above the soil at all, the 

 compact surface profusely covered with the • yellowish flowers. 

 The marked reduction in number in the floral organs, together 

 with the great difference in habit, led me to think that this plant 

 was not to be associated with G. pungens caespitosa A. Gray. But 

 Dr. Rydberg who has collected the latter at the type locality, 

 " Scott's Bluff, Wyo." (now Neb.) thinks there can be no doubt 

 of their identity. 



It is abundant on the dry, clay and shale bluffs overlooking 

 Green River and in many similar situations eastward in this state. 

 The specimen from which the description is drawn is my no. 3053, 



(546) 



cr 



