MYRTIFLORAE ONAGRACEAE 



645 



Distribution. From Ontario to Georgia, Arkansas and Nebraska and Min- 

 nesota. 



' 



Fig. 366. Willow-herb (Epi- 

 lobium augusti folium). Occa- 

 sionally used in medicine. (After 

 Fitch.) 







Gaura parviflora, Dougl. 



A hairy, branching, soft pubescent annual from 2-5 feet high; leaves lance- 

 olate or ovate lanceolate, acute or acuminate, sessile, repand, denticulate, cov- 

 ered with long soft hairs; the pinkish flowers about l /> inch long, borne in long 

 flexuose spikes 2-3 feet long; fruit contracted at the base, obtusely 4-angled, 

 glabrous. 



Distribution. Common in dry soil from South Dakota to Missouri, Louisi- 

 ana, the Rocky Mountain region and New Mexico and Mexico. A common weed 

 along irrigation ditches. 



Gaura coccinea, Pursh. Scarlet Gaura. 



An erect or ascending, much branched, smooth or canescent herb ; leaves 

 lanceolate, linear-oblong, repand or entire ; flowers red, turning scarlet ; fruit 

 canescent, terete below, and narrowed above. 



Distribution. From Western Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas to 

 Utah, Arizona, and Mexico. 



Poisonous properties. The Gauras, or at least one species, the Gaura 

 coccinea, have been suspected of being poisonous to live stock in the West. 

 This is an excellent honey plant. 



UMBELLALES 



Herbs, shrubs or trees ; flowers nearly always with petals ; divisions of the 

 calyx and petals usually 5 ; stamens 4 or S ; ovary compound inferior, adnate 

 to the calyx ; epigynous ovule 1 in each cavity. 



