PEiNTSTEMON SECUNDIFLORUS. 

 ONE-SIDED PENtSTEMON. 



NATURAL ORDER, SCROPHULARIACE/E. 



Pentstemon SECUNDIFLORUS, Eetitliam.— A foot or two high, including the elongated and 

 racemiform strict many-flowered thyrsus: cauline leaves narrowly lanceolate (iwo or 

 three inches long and lines wide) ; radical spatulate : peduncles one to three-flowered : 

 sepals ovate or oblong, acute or obtuse, with somewhat scarious but entire margins : co- 

 rolla M'ith narrow proper tube of nearly twice the length of the calyx, abru])tly dilated into 

 the broadly campanulate throat of about one-third inch in height and width ; this nearly 

 equalled by the widely spreading lips; the lobes round-oval : sterile filament glabrous or 

 minutely bearded at the dilated tip. (Gray's Synoptical Flora of North America. See 

 also Porter's Flora of Colorado^ 



IS|EW plants show the great progress oi botanical discovery 

 Lkssal on our continent better than the genus Paitskinon, to 

 "which our present subject belongs. In the early part of the 

 present century barely a dozen kinds were known. Between 

 1820 and 1830 the Royal Horticultural Society of London was 

 in a very active condition, and it employed a remarkably acute 

 and energetic collector, Douglas, to explore the Pacific coast in 

 search of noveUies that might add to the gayety of English gar- 

 dens. During the few years that this distinguished man was 

 engaged in this work, he added about twenty new Pentstemons to 

 those already known. Following him came Drummond in 

 Texas, and Nuttall, Fremont, and Long, till in 1845, when De Can- 

 dolle's "Prodromus," containing the Pentstemons known to that 

 time appeared, fifty-four species were described. In Dr. Gray's 

 "Synoptical Flora of North America," issued in May, 1878, there 

 are no less than seventy named and classified; and there is litde 

 doubt but that, as the country becomes still further explored, 



('73) 



