BORRAGINACEJE. 



57 



BORRAGUNACE^E. 



Mostly roughly pubescent herbs, with alternate 

 entire leaves without stipules, scorpioid inflores- 

 cence, and perfectly regular 5-androus flowers; the 

 ovary of 4 lobes or divisions around a central style, 

 ripening into seed-like nutlets. Calyx free, 5-parted 

 or 5-cleft, persistent. Corolla with a 5-lobed limb, 

 commonly imbricated in the bud. Stamens dis- 

 tinct, inserted in the tube or throat of the corolla 

 alternate with its lobes. The one-sided and coiled 

 apparent spikes or racemes straighten as the blos- 

 soms develop. Key to genera and species, p. 152. 



Borrago officinalis has escaped from gardens 

 in Santa Cruz. It is a very rough herb with clus- 

 ters of nodding deep blue flowers, the rotate corollas 

 and connivent anthers reminding one of potato 

 blossoms. 



LITHOSPERMUM. 



!L. arvense, Linn. Annual, a foot high, hoary 

 with appressed hairs: leaves narrowly lanceolate 

 or linear: flowers small white, sessile in leafy ter- 

 minal cymes: nutlets conical, wrinkled. An Old 



Amsinckia lycopsoides. a. Calyx World weed now apparently established in San 

 spread apart to show the ripe akenes. 



AMSINCKIA. 



A. campestris, Greene. Rather stout, 1-2 feet high, the short and rather dense 

 spikes aggregated at the top of the stem: leaves linear-oblanceolate: sepals hardly twice 

 the length of the nutlets: corolla inconspicuous: nutlets very dark brown, irregularly 

 transverse-rugose and echinate-muricate. Byron Springs. 



A. echinata, Gray. Erect, 1-2 feet high, very hispid with white spreading bristles: 

 leaves linear Janceolate: sepals narrow, yellow-hispid: corolla small and very slender: 

 nutlets almost prickly-muricate, not rugose. Perhaps not within our limits. 



A. collina, Greene. Near A. tessellata, but slender and not branched: leaves nar- 

 rowly linear-lanceolate, acute: calyx intensely gray-brown: corolla without folds in the 

 throat: nutlets marked with few and sharp transverse ridges and intervening low tes- 

 sellated granulations. Hills east of Livermore. 



