Amsinekia. BORRAGINACE^. 523 



olate ; racemes rather dense : pedicels short and mostly spreading : corolla with 

 bright blue or at first purple limb about 3 lines in diameter. 



Mountains of Oregon and northward (to be sought in the high Sierra Nevada or on the north- 

 western borders of the State) : extending to the Arctic regions, and in Asia and Europe. 



5. MERTENSIA, Roth. 



Calyx 5-parted or 5-cleft, herbaceous. Corolla salverform or somewhat funnel- 

 form, with rounded lobes, the open throat naked or with mostly inconspicuous 

 crests. Filaments in our species broader than the anthers. Style filiform : stigma 

 minutely capitate. Nutlets ovate or somewhat triangular, between fleshy and cori- 

 aceous, dull, commonly somewhat wrinkled when dry, sometimes smooth and 

 vesicular, fixed, usually by a projection of the ventral angle towards or above the 

 base, to a low pyramidal or convex receptacle or gynobase. Perennials, remarkable 

 in this order for their smoothness ; with broad leaves, and racemose or paniculate- 

 clustered flowers, which are usually nodding or inclined on rather slender pedicels, 

 only the lowest leafy-bracted : flowers blue, violet-purple, or rarely white. DC. 

 1. c. ; Gray in Am. Jour. Sci. ser. 2, xxxiv. 339 & Proc. Am. Acad. x. 52. 



A genus of a dozen or more species, divided between North America and Northern Asia, one 

 species, the handsomest and largest-flowered, peculiar to the Atlantic States, and one small- 

 flowered maritime species (M. ntaritima) on all the northern shores. On the Pacific coast this is 

 not known to occur south of Puget Sound. Besides the following, M. paniculata, Don, and 

 M. alpina, Don, both common in the higher Rocky Mountains, are likely to be found also in 

 the Sierra Nevada. 



1. M. Sibirica, Don. Smooth and glabrous or nearly so, a foot or more high, 

 rather succulent, leafy : leaves pale, ovate-lanceolate or oblong, acute, 2 to 5 inches 

 long, or the lowest larger and broader, minutely ciliate : flowers at first clustered : 

 corolla half an inch or less long, much longer than the oblong obtuse divisions 

 of the calyx ; the 5-cleft limb about half the length of the tube : stamens protrud- 

 ing out of the throat, and the capillary style early projecting beyond the lobes. 

 Gray, 1. c. ; Watson, Bot. King Exp. 239. Pulmonaria Sibirica, Linn. Mertensia 

 denticulata & ciliata, DC. 



Along mountain streams, in the Sierra Nevada, Bolnnder, Lcmmon. Also in the mountains 

 eastward, and in N. E. Asia. Flowers handsome, violet-blue. 



6. AMSINCKIA, Lehm. 



Calyx 5-parted, persistent. Corolla salverform, or at the throat somewhat funnel- 

 form, more or less plaited in bud at the sinuses, with tube exceeding the calyx, and 

 rounded lobes : throat naked or rarely with minute hairy tufts opposite the lobes. 

 Filaments short : anthers oblong or oblong-linear. Style filiform : stigma capitate- 

 2-lobed. Nutlets ovate-triangular or triquetrous, coriaceous or crustaceous, affixed 

 above the base to an oblong-pyramidal gynobase ; the scar ovate or oblong. Coty- 

 ledons each 2-parted ! Hispid annuals (of Western America, one in Chili), with 

 oblong-ovate to linear leaves, and yellow flowers in at length loose spikes or racemes, 

 without bracts, except sometimes to the lowest. Bristles mostly from a conspic- 

 uous pustulate base. Flowers, at least in some species, dimorphous as to insertion 

 of stamens and length of style. Fischer & Meyer, Ind. Sera. Hort. Petrop. 1 835, 

 26 ; DC. Prodr. x. 117 ; Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. x. 54. 



The species are difficult to characterize, except the last, which has a peculiar fruit. 



