484 BORAGINACE PLAGIOBOTHRYS 
on short persistent pedicels in elongating circinate racemes. Ca- 
lyx 5-cleft or 5-parted, closed or campanulate or even spreading 
and more or less enlarged in fruit, persistent or irregularly cir- 
cumscissal near the base. Corolla short, with more or less con- 
spicuous appendages in its throat. Nutlets broadly ovate-trigon- 
ous, incurved, carinate on both sides toward the apex, the back 
irregularly transversely rugose, attached by the middle of the 
concave or seemingly hollowed ventral tace to a globular or short- 
conical gynobase, tardily detached, leaving a kind of caruncle at 
the insertion and corresponding depressed cavities on the gyno- 
base, often only 1 or 2 maturing. _ 
* Nutlets crustaceous or nearly so, usually only 1 or2 maturing and 
then horizontally incumbent at maturity on the subglobose or merely 
conyex gynobase: the caruncle short and broad, not stipiform, leaving 
orbicular depressions on the gynobase. 
+ Caruncle annular, merely bordering a deep circular pit. 
P. campestris Greene Pitt ii, 282. P. rufescens Gray, not F. & M. 
Pubescent with soft white hairs: stem slender, erect, 10-30 inches high, 
simple up to the 1-3 racemes: radical leaves numerous, 1-2 inches long, 
oblanceolate, usually withering at flowering time; cauline leaves smaller, 
linear-oblong to lanceolate, sessile, with a broad somewhat clasping base: 
racemes usually 3, the lower one smallest, the others geminate with a 
flower in the fork, sparsely flowered: calyx of linear-lanceolate nearly dis- 
tinct sepals 3 lines long, rusty-hirsute when young: corolla but little longer 
than the calyx, the limb 2-5, lines broad : nutlets a tine long, little incurved, 
nearly orbicular, abruptly short-beaked, sharply carinate on the back and 
the sides sharply angled and reticulate-rugose. On dry hillsides, southern 
Oregon and California. 
+ + (aruncle forming a wen-shaped or tongue-shaped process that 
fits into a corresponding cavity in the merely convex gynobase. 
++ Calyx persistent, not circumscissile near the base: mature nutlets 
abruptly contracted at base and apex so as to become cruciately 4-lobed 
vitreous shining or enameled. 
P. tenellus Gray Proc. Am. Acad. xx, 283. Pubescent with rather soft 
hairs: stem slender erect or ascending, 6-10 inches high, usually branching 
from the base: radicai leaves numerous, in a dense rosulate taft, broadly 
linear to lanceolate, 6-12 lines long; cauline leaves few, lanceolate to near- 
ly ovate, sessile by a broad somewhat clasping base: racemes usually gem- 
inate without a flower in the fork, rather densely flowered: calyx 2 lines 
long, fulvous-hirsute, cleft to below the middle, the lobes acuminate-trian- 
gular:.corolla about a line broad: nutlets vitreous-shining, sharply carinate 
on the back, transversely rugose and sharply tuberculate. Common in 
open places, Brit. Columbia to California. 
P. asper Greene Pitt. iii, 262. ‘‘ Of the P. tenellus group, but larger 
than the others and rather diffusely branched or many-stemmed from the 
rosulate tuft of basal leaves, the branches hispid, floriferous almost throu-. 
ghout, many of the calyces subtended by a leafy bract; leaves rather 
roughly hirsute or almost hispid: calyx large and nutlets 34 line long, vit- 
reous and shining, lineately rugose transversely and with or without 
murications. ”’ 
‘¢ Frequent from northern California to Washington. . Easily distinguish- 
ed at sight by its large size, its many stems, and its stiff harsh pubescence.”’ 
