SPOTTED XEMOPHILA (Nemdphila mdculata, Benth.). 

 Flowers about an inch to 1^ inches in diameter, saucer-shaped, 

 white, purple-dotted and with a purple blotch at the tip of each 

 lobe of the corolla. Leaves lyre-shaped, deeply 5- to 9-parted. 

 A low, hairy annual with spreading stems; blooming in summer 

 in Central California from the Sacramento Valley to the 

 Sierra Nevada, including the Yosemite region. Occasion- 

 ally one meets with a form in which the purple-blotch is ab- 

 sent. This is the variety concohr. 



There are hah* a dozen species or more of Nemophila indig- 

 enous to the Pacific Coast. Not all are as showy of blossom 

 as the Spotted Nemophila, which, like its charming cousin, 

 Baby-blue-eyes, has long been cultivated in gardens. The 

 flowers of all are distinguished by the calyx being provided 

 between each division with an extra lobe which is sharply 

 turned back. The word Nemophila means "grove-loving," 

 an allusion to the plants' liking for shady places. Among 

 gardeners the cultivated forms sometimes go under the name 

 California Blue-bells, an unhappy misnomer, for blue-bells 

 thev are not. 



167 



