282 



LILIACEAE 



Mesas near San Diego. 



Ref. BLOOSIERIA CLEVELANDII Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 20:376 (1885), type loc. mesas, San 

 Diego. 



16. BRODIAEA Sm. 



Stem scapose, arising from a eorm, erect and straight, or sometimes elongated 

 and twining. Leaves mostly few and grass-like. Flowers in a loose or capitate 

 umbel. Pedicels jointed beneath the perianth. Perianth-tube various. Stamens 

 6, or the alternate stamens replaced by dilated sterile filaments or staminodia. 

 Filaments slender or more frequently winged and produced beyond the anther 

 in the form of thin appendages. Ovary on a short stipe or sessile. Capsule 

 loculicidal, beaked by the style which splits with the valves. Species about 40, 

 western North America and in South America, especially Chile. (James Brodie, 

 Scotch botanist.) 



While the species of Brodiaea are somewhat diverse in floral characters, especially as to 

 perianth and stamens, the flower is after all reducible to one sufficiently definite generic plan. 

 In any event if we accept more than one genus there must logically be at least seven. In 

 various particulars, however, the various sections (which are by some authors accepted as 

 genera) overlap in a manner that is genetically significant. While Brodiaea volubilis (genus 

 Stropholirion Torr.) is remarkable for its long twining stem, at the same time Brodiaea pul- 

 chella (genus Dipterostemon Rydb.) is often very tortuous at summit of its long stem, a char- 

 acter which is often perceivable too in B. capitata and B. multiflora (genus Diolielostemma 

 Kunth) and, what is most significant from the viewpoint of a single genus, even sometimes 

 in B. coronaria (genus HooTcera Sm.). The perianth tube is markedly inflated in B. volubilis 

 and B. capitata, but this character is also more or less evident in B. pulchella and there is 

 even a suggestion of it in B. minor and B. synandra and perhaps in B. californica. The 

 staminode character is so very unsteady and even erratic that it has no generic value. The 

 total evidence in favor of the close genetic connection of these species is very convincing. 



Variation within the species is also very marked. Brodiaea eoronaria, minor, filifolia, laxa, 

 ixioides, hyacinthina, and capitata, are especially variable in habit and size, developing a 

 large number of forms, which seem evidently related to the habitat, but are also inconstant 

 in certain of the structural details of the flowers (such as the staminodes) as well as in color. 

 There is at present sufficient material available of the above types to furnish a sort of basis 

 for perhaps sixty species instead of seven, but these would in our opinion quite lack definiteness, 

 since the habital features are not correlated with structural variations in the flowers and 

 the intergrades are too numerous. The staminodia in B. minor and grandiflora are very 

 variable in size and shape, as are the filaments in B. ixioides. B. laxa often has pale or nearly 

 white flowers, B. minor rose-colored ones; B. ida-maia has been found with buckskin color 

 flowers and apparently B. crocea may occur in a pale blue form. The capsules of some, perhaps 

 all, Brodiaeas have good characters but our fruiting material is too inadequate for complete 

 differential fruit diagnoses. 



Bibliog. Smith, J. E., Characters of a new Liliaceous genus called Brodiaea (Trans. Linn. 

 Soc. 10:1-5, 1811). Greene, E. L., Some genera confused under the name Brodiaea (Bull. 

 Gal. Acad. 2:125-144, 1886). Britten, J., Hookera vs. Brodiaea (Jour. Bot. 24:49-51, 

 1886). Baker, E. G., The Genus Brodiaea and its Allies (Gard. Chron. ser. 3, 20:213-214, 

 238-239, 459, 687, figs. 36-^1, 44-47, 79-81, 117-120, 1896). 



A. Umbels loose; stamens 6; anthers versatile (basifixed in no. 7), ovate or ovate- 

 lanceolate; ovary on a long or short stipe; pedicels nearly equal, rather lax; 

 conns somewhat flattened; leaves Vi to l /z inch wide (except no. 4). Subgenus 

 TRITELIA. 

 Filaments filiform. 



Flowers commonly blue or purple, sometimes pale or nearly white; ovary on a long slender 



stipe. 

 Pedicels 1 to 1% times the perianth. 



Stamens in one row; filaments deltoid; restricted range 1. S. ~bridgesii. 



Stamens in 2 rows; filaments not deltoid; mostly adobe or clay fields and hillsides, 



common and widely distributed 2. B. laxa. 



Pedicels 3 to 6 times the perianth; low wet ground mostly near the coast 



3. B. peduncularis. 

 Flowers yellow; ovary equaling or longer than the stipe. 



Filaments long, slender, sub-equal; leaves 1 to 2 lines wide 4. B. gracllis. 



Filaments short, about equaling anthers, in 2 rows; leaves ^ to % inch wide 



5. B. crocea. 



