Morris:. North American Plantaginaceae 525 



irigly pubescent, several to many, sessile, linear to linear-filiform, 

 scarious-expanded at the base, entire, obtusely (callous-) tipped, 

 obscurely 1-3-nerved, 3-10 cm. x 1-4 mm. Scapes basal and 

 axillary, erect, slightly to twice surpassing the leaves, terete, a 

 little thickened at the summit, appressed-pubescent, one to ten 

 (even fifteen ?), 5-1 5 cm, tall. Spikes cylindrical, with the flowers 

 more or less imbricate, few- to thirty-flowered. Bracts closely 

 subtending the flowers, about equaling the calyx, carnulose-keeled 

 and saccate, broadly ovate, margins scarious and as wide as the 

 herbaceous center, obtuse, 2.5 mm. x 3 mm. The flowers incon- 

 stantly dimorpho-subdioecious. Calyx glabrous, its divisions 

 scarious, with slightly herbaceous midribs, obovate, rounded, 

 2 mm. X 1.5 mm. Corolla minute, just exceeding the capsule, 

 its lobes spreading, often not closing in fruit, scarious, with darker 

 midrib, lanceolate-triangular, acute. Stamens two, little if at all 

 exserted. Pyxis one third longer than the calyx, oblong-ovoid, 

 abruptly rounded, circumscissile just below the middle. Seeds 

 four to six, black, rough, oblong, 1.5 mm. X 0.5 nim. 



Type specimen is Bigelow's collection, April 23, 1854, from 

 Benicia, California, in the Gray Herbarium. 



Sixty-one sheets or specimens from British Columbia, Wash- 

 ington, and California have been examined, in herbaria as follows : 

 6, Geological and Natural History Survey of Canada ; 9, Columbia 

 University and New York Botanical Garden ; 4, Field Museum of 

 Natural History; 12, Gray Herbarium; 6, Doctor Edward Lee 

 Greene ; 7, Missouri Botanical Garden ; 3, Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia ; 10, United States National Herbarium; 

 I, University of Pennsylvania ; and 3, my own herbarium. 



Plantago elongata Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 2: 729. 1814 



pusilla Decaisne, pro parte 



85 



p. BlgehviiS. Watson, Bot. King Exped. 5: 212. 187 1. Not 



A. Gray, in Whippl 



117. 1857. 



P. pusilla van macrospcrma Engelmann, Bot. Gaz. 8: 175. 



1883. Not P. macrosperma Steudel, Flora 32 : 405. 1849. 



P. pusilla A. Gray, pro parte, Syn. Fl. 2' : 392- 1886. Not 



Nuttall, Gen. N. Am. PI. i : 100. 18 18. 



pro parte 



Mem 



1900 



A relatively low, erect, rather coarse, acaulescent annual, of 

 subsaline and saline situations, noticeably cinereous-pubescent in 



