 PLATYSPERMUM. CRUCIFER®. 51 
LESQUERELLA. 
’ 
lobed, petiolate: petals 1~1% lines long, twice longer than the sepals: pods 
few, somewhat corymbed at the end of the branches, 5-9 lines long by half 
a line erect: style very short. In upland forests central California to Van- 
couver Island west of the Cascade Mountains. 
Tribe II. Alyssineer, DC. Fruit short, orbicular elliptical or 
short-oblong, rarely more elongated lanceolate or linear, always 
more or less compressed parallel to the partition, 1-2-celled and 
I-many-seeded. Valves flat or moderately convex. Cotyledons 
accumbent or very rarely incumbent. 
* Pods strongly compressed parallel to the broad partition. 
2 PLATYSPERMUM Hook. FI. i, 68 t. 18 fig. B. 
Small winter annuals with simple or pinnatifid leaves and 
small white solitary flowers on simple scapes. Sepals broad, 
equal, erect. Petals obovate, entire or retuse. Pods sessile orbic- 
ular strongly compressed, with flat nerveless and hyaline parti- 
tion. Stigma sessile, simple. Seeds 4-6 in each cell, in 2 rows 
reticulated orbicular and broadly winged. Cotyledons accum- 
bent. 
P. scapigerum Hook 1. c. Leaves lyrately pionatifid with few 
lobes or reduced to asingle rnombic or ovate toothed, or entire blade upona 
slender petiole: scapes at length 8-6 inches long ascending: flowers about 
a line long; petals narrowly obovate to linear-spatulate, short unguiculate, 
not exceeding the erect sepals: pods orbicular to oblong or obovate 3-4 lines 
long, Common in moist places Brit. Columbia to California, chiefly east: of 
the Cascade Mountains. 
* * Pods very turgid: partition broad, nerved from the top to the 
middle. | 
12 LESQUERELLA Watson’ Proc. Am. Acad. xxiii, 249. 
VESICARIA of authors as to the American plants. 
Low caulescent annual or perennial herbs with stellate, often 
dense or white-lepidote pubescence, entire or repand-dentate 
leaves and mostly yellow flowers. Petals spatulate to oblong- 
obovate entire. Filaments filiform or rarely dilated: anthers 
sagittate. Stigma flat, capitate entire or lobed. Pods more or 
less turgid, rounded or ovate or short-oblong with nerveless 
valves; and a hyaline partition nerved from the apex to the mid- 
dle, several to many-seeded, sessile or stipitate. Seeds rounded, 
‘flat, wingless or rarely narrowly margined. Cotyledons accum- 
bent. 
L. occidentalis Watson |. c. 251. Canescent with a dense, appressed, 
scurffy, obscurely stellate, silvery pubescence: stems many from a fleshy 
branching caudex, decumbent, 4-12 inches long or more: lower leaves ob- 
lanceolate, attenute at base, 1-4 inches long including the petiole, mostly 
coarsely sinuate-dentate ; cauline leaves spatulate-oblanceolate, mostly en- 
tire: petals spatulate, 3-5 lines long; style very slender about 2 lines long: 
pods compressed-globose, acutish, 2-4 lines long sessile upon a more or 
less flexuous pedicel 4-8 lines long. Sandy or stony hillsides, Washington 
to northern California east of the Cascade Mountains. 
