* 
54 PITTONIA. 
the two lobes of the upper lip were rather smaller than the 
three forming the lower. Those of the lower were all just 
alike, that is to say, the middle one which in its normal state 
lies conduplicate and keel-like back of and below the other 
two, closely enfolding the stamens, was plane like the rest, all 
three being of one size, form and color, and the stamens being 
left free to assume the place which they are wont to hold in 
regular flowers, in immediate contiguity to the pistil. But 
more than this; between each of the three sinuses of this 
lower lip and the closed throat of the corolla there lay a nar- 
row but conspicuous fold, very like that which one sees in 
Myosotis and some other genera of Asperifolie. The other 
nine or ten corollas were perfectly regular, there being no 
difference at all, of size, form or attitude, between the five 
segments of each flower, the limb as a whole being almost 
rotate, and the folds were five also. The color in all was a 
mere lavender, deepening into purplish at the very tips of the 
segments; for this species of Collinsia is variable in color, 
the shades as often very light and nearly white as they are 
darker. 
I suppose that if one of these perfectly regular corollas had 
been brought to me for identification, and only the corolla 
with its adherent stamens, I should not have referred it even 
to the natural order of Scrophularine, much less to the genus 
Collinsia. But I might have thought it to belong to some 
genus of Hydrophyllacex or Polemoniaces with which I had 
no acquaintance ; or, remembering the peculiar folds in the 
throat of certain gilia flowers, I might have taken it for a new, 
but very anomalous species of that genus. However, if in the 
supposed case, the corolla had been one of the less regular of 
the two kinds which this plant bore, I think I could not have 
hesitated long as to the order ; for these corollas are fairly 
those of Nuttall’s genus Tonella which Mr. Bentham early 
reduced to Collinsia but afterwards restored, apparently in 
deference to the opinion of Professor Gray. 
The retention of Tonella as a genus has been a manifest 
