Dodecatheon. PRIMULACE^E. 467 



above in age) : anthers lanceolate or linear (yellow or violet), introrse, more or less 

 connivent around the filiform exserted style. Stigma small. Capsule ovoid or ob- 

 long, splitting from the apex into 5 or more teeth or valves : placenta columnar, 

 many -seeded. Perennial smooth herbs, acaulescent ; with a tuft of membranaceous 

 leaves, and below fibrous roots springing from a short erect crown, sending up a 

 naked simple scape, which is terminated by an umbel of few or many (rarely even 

 solitary) handsome flowers : these at first gracefully pendulous on the recurved sum- 

 mit of the pedicels : after flowering the pedicels are erect. Involucre of a few 

 slender bracts. Corolla purple, pink, or sometimes white. The flowers occasionally 

 vary with all their parts in fours. 



1. D. Meadia, Linn. Leaves varying from obovate to lanceolate, entire or 

 more or less toothed : scape 3 to 15 inches high : umbel 2 - 20-flowered. So far 

 as we can make out, only one species occurs, which extends across the continent, 

 and on the Pacific side through fully 40 degrees of latitude (viz. from Guadalupe 

 Island, Lower California, to those within Behring Straits), varying immensely and 

 inextricably. The Pacific forms (which usually have rather shorter or blunter 

 anthers than the Atlantic) may, as to their leading features, be mainly but loosely 

 arranged under the following varieties. 



Var. brevifolium : common through the warmer parts of the State : leaves 

 round-obovate or spatulate, one half to an inch and a half long, short-petioled, thick- 

 ish : scape a span to near a foot high, few - many- flowered : capsule ovoid, hardly 

 exceeding the minutely glandular calyx. D. ellipticum, Nutt. ex Durand, PL 

 Pratt, in Jour. Acad. Philad. n. ser. ii. 95. D. integrifolium, Benth. PL Hartw. 

 322, not of Michx. 



Var. lancifolium : common in wet mountain meadows, flowering in summer : 

 leaves oblanceolate or lanceolate-spatulate, 3 to 10 inches long (including the short 

 margined petiole), quite entire, mucronate : pedicels and calyx commonly minutely 

 glandular ; the lanceolate or triangular-lanceolate lobes of the latter nearly equalling 

 the short-ovoid capsule. D. Jaffrayi of the gardens. 



Var. alpinum: a diminutive state of the foregoing, on the higher mountains, 

 at 9,500 to 12,000 feet : the narrow leaves an inch or two, the 1 3-flowered scape 

 2 to 4 inches high : pedicels and calyx quite glabrous. 



Var. macrocarpum : a mostly large and stout form, from Alaska southward : 

 spatulate or oblanceolate leaves 5 to 10 inches long (including the petiole) : scapes 

 often a foot high, several - many-flowered : capsule oblong or almost fusiform (half to 

 three fourths of an inch in length), about twice the length of the narrow calyx- 

 lobes. A form which may be referred here, with laciniately-toothed spatulate 

 leaves, was collected on the mountains of Ventura Co., Brewer. 



Var. frigidum, Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 5871, & S. Watson, Bot. King Exp. : in- 

 cludes various forms, ranging from the high Sierra northward to the islands within 

 Behring Straits : leaves obovate or oblong, very obtuse, mostly entire, with either 

 short or slender petiole : scape a span or more high, few several-flowered : calyx- 

 lobes longer than the tube, varying from broadly to ovate-lanceolate, shorter than 

 the oblong (or sometimes ovoid ]) capsule. D. frigidum, Cham. & Schlecht. ; Seem. 

 Bot. Herald, t. 9. 



Var. latilobum: leaves thin, oval, undulate-toothed, 1 to 2 inches long, ab- 

 ruptly contracted into a petiole of nearly twice the length : scape a span to a foot 

 high, 1 - several-flowered : calyx-lobes ovate or triangular-ovate, not longer than the 

 tube, about half the length of the narrowly oblong capsule. D. Meadia, var. fri- 

 gidum, Watson, 1. c., in part. (East side of Cascade Mts., Washington Territory, 

 Lyall. Wahsatch Mts., Utah, Watson.) 



Stations and geographical range sufficiently specified above. 



