PENTSTEMON. 



more than 8 inches, beset with notably narrow foliage, and carrying 

 wide-open flowers — the whole growth forming a neat mass or cushion. 



P. crassifoli>is = P.fruticosus, q.v. 



P. cyananthus stands quite close to lovely P. glaber, but is taller 

 and more slender, with the leaves all broad, and dense spires of 

 bright blue blossoms, suddenly swelling as they emerge from the 

 calyx. 



P. Davidsoni, a vexed name for a very dwarf and prostrate small 

 Pentstemon with fleshy little oval toothed leaves of bright green, 

 clothing the stems of a fat and minute branching shrublet of an inch 

 or two in height, that end in baggy bugles of a ferocious aniline red- 

 mauve most terrible and breath-taking to look upon in the sun. It 

 thrives perennially in light open places, in perfectly-drained warm 

 soil or granitic moraine, and is essentially a rock-plant for a sunny 

 deep crevice : and can be multiplied from cuttings like a Pelargonium. 

 It has appeared every season under a new name, P. Jlenziesii. 

 Douglasii, &c. The frail human mind is not willing so to continue 

 burdening itself, on behalf of a gem so little pleasing to the subtler 

 senses, though in itself of a brazen brilliancy quite mimitable. 



P. deustus is little worth indeed. 



P. diffusus is even less worth, being a very coarse and leafy weed 

 about 18 mches high or less, lush and rampageous-looking, with dismal 

 and undistinguished purple bells half lost among the rankly -toothed 

 foliage. 



P digitalis is a variety of P. laevigatas, and of no use or value. 



P. Douglasii, a name to discard and ignore. 



P. Eatoni is tall and leafy, about 2 feet high, with the leaves clasping 

 the stems, and a strict spike of fiery crimson flowers widening at the 

 mouth. 



P. erianthera has stems of nearly a foot, beset with almost un- 

 toothed foliage, and ending in dense spikes of red-violet blossoms, 

 each about an inch long, and set each in a bract of leafage, sticky 

 above and with fluff on the lower lip (P. cristatus). 



P. exilifolius, from the dry and stony places of Wyoming and 

 West Colorado, has a neatly tufted habit, and its stems of not more 

 than 6 mches are set with a remarkable abundance of channelled httle 

 leaves, pointed and finely narrow. The flowers are white, carried in 

 a crowded shower, each on a slender foot -stalk ; and the shoots are 

 so delicate in their leafage as to suggest the sprigs of a larch. 



P. Fremontii lives in the Red Deserts of Wyoming. It is a neat 

 thing, with stems of half a foot, more or less, and the whole plant 

 dense with a hoar-frosted down ; the flowers are purple-blue funnels 



(1,996) id II. — D 



\ 



