139 
NOTES ON THE GENUS NEMOPHILA. 
By F. T. Brouertt. 
Among the most noticeable of Californian annuals are the 
showy Nemophilas of the Menziesii group. About half a 
dozen species have been described by various authors, 
namely, Douglas, Bentham, Hooker and Arnott, Fischer and 
Meyer. These in Gray’s Flora of North America were 
reduced to two, Nemophila insignis, Dougl., and N. Menziesii, 
H. & A. WN. pedunculata, Benth., a species which properly 
belongs to this group, although the flowers are minute, has 
been recognised by Prof. Greene in the “Manual of the Botany 
of the Bay Region.” Most of the species originally described 
were known to their authors in the fresh state, while the 
uniting of species has been done principally by those who 
have studied the plants as dried specimens. 
The characters which have been chiefly used in the differ- 
entiation of species in this group, such as the size and pubes- 
cence of the plant, the form of the leaves, the color and 
markings of the corolla are extremely variable. Plants un- 
questionably of the same species from different localities, 
and even plants growing side by side, show great diversity 
in leaf outline and pubescence. The calyx and ovary pre- 
sent some good characters but the calyx appendages vary 
greatly in size and shape, being occasionally completely 
absent. The small flowered Nemophila (N. pedunculata, 
Benth. ?) growing on the San Francisco sand hills is often 
without calyx appendages and I have found N. atomaria 
with only one or two, the others not having developed. As 
Bentham first pointed out, the inter-staminal scales, or 
appendages, of the corolla are fairly constant in form in the 
same species. In the present grouping of the species the 
form of these scales has alone been considered of primary, 
and the vegetative characters of only secondary specific value. 
The corolla appendages are ten in number and occur in pairs 
at the base of each filament. Fischer and Meyer, in their 
Eryruaza, Vol. IIL, No. 10 [1 October, 1895]. 
