BORAGINACEAE (BORAGE FAMILY) 



685 



9. MERTENSIA Roth. LUNGWORT 



Corolla longer than the deeply 5-cleft or 5-parted calyx, naked, or with 5 

 small glandular folds or appendages in the open throat. Anthers oblong or 

 arrow-shaped. Style long and thread-form. Nutlets ovoid, fleshy when fresh, 

 smooth or wrinkled, obliquely attached by a prominent 

 internal angle ; the scar small. Smooth or soft-hairy 

 perennial herbs, with pale and entire leaves, and hand- 

 some purplish-blue (rarely white) flowers, in loose and 

 short panicled or corymbed raceme-like clusters, only the 

 lower one leafy-bracted ; pedicels slender. (Named for 

 Franz Karl Mertens, a German botanist.) 



* Corolla trumpet-shaped, with spreading nearly entire 

 limb and naked throat; filaments slender, exserted; 

 hypogynous disk 2-lobed. 



1. M. virginica (L.) Link. (VIRGINIAN COWSLIP, 

 BLUEBELLS.) Very smooth, pale, erect, 2-6 dm. high; 

 leaves obovate, veiny, those at the root 1-1.5 dm. long, 

 petioled; corolla trumpet-shaped, 2-2.5 cm. long, many 



times exceeding the calyx, light blue (pinkish in bud), rarely white ; nutlets 

 dull and roughish. Alluvial banks, N. Y. and Ont. to Neb., and southw. 

 Apr., May. FIG. 869. 



* * Corolla with conspicuously 5-lobed limb and crested throat. 

 <- Filaments broad and short; nutlets dull, wrinkled or roughish when dry. 



2. M. paniculata (Ait.) G. Don. Roughish and more or 

 less hairy, erect, 0.3-1 m. high, loosely branched ; leaves ovate 

 and ovate-lanceolate, taper-pointed, ribbed, thin; corolla 1-1.6 

 cm. long, somewhat funnel-form, 3-4 times the length of the 

 lance-linear acute divisions of the calyx ; filaments broader and 

 shorter than the anthers. Shore of L. Superior, northw. and 

 westw. July, Aug. 



Filaments longer and narrower than the anthers; nutlets 

 shining, utricular. 



M. maritima (L.) S. F. Gray. (SEA L.) Spreading or 

 decumbent, smooth, glaucous ; leaves ovate, obovate, or spatulate, 

 fleshy, the upper surface becoming papillose ; corolla white, 

 rose-pink, or blue, bell-funnel-form, 5-7 mm. long, twice the 

 length of the calyx. (Pneumaria Hill.) Sea-coast, on rocks 

 and sand, Nan tucket, Mass., and northw. June-Sept. (Eura- 

 sia.) FIG. 870. 



870. M. inaritima. 



10. LITHOSPERMUM [Tourn.] L. GROMWELL. PUCCOON 



Throat of corolla naked, or with a more or less evident transverse fold or 

 scale-like appendage opposite each lobe ; the limb 6-cleft. Anthers oblong, 

 almost sessile, included. Nutlets smooth or roughened, mostly bony or stony ; 

 scar nearly flat. Herbs, with thickish and commonly red roots and sessile 

 leaves ; flowers solitary and as if axillary, or spiked and leafy-bracted, some- 

 times dimorphous as to insertion of stamens and length of style. (Name formed 

 of Xt'flos, stone, and <nrepfj.a, seed, from the hard nutlets.) 



1. RHYTISPERMUM (Link) Reichenb. Outlets tubercled or rough- 

 wrinkled and pitted, gray and dnll ; throat of the (nearly white) corolla 

 destitute of any evident folds or appendages. * 



1. L. ARVENSE L. (CORN G.) Minutely roughened and hoary, annual or 

 jnnial ; stems erect, 2-7 dm. high ; leaves lanceolate or linear, veinless ; 



