WILD HELIOTROPE (Phacelia distant. Benth.). Flowers 

 blue to whitish, nearly \ inch across, wheel-shaped, stamens 

 but slightly exserted; disposed in clustered coils unrolling 

 gradually as the flowers expand. Leaves finely compound- 

 dissected, a few inches long. A straggling, much branched 

 annual, more or less hairy of leaf and stem, 1 to 3 feet tall, 

 blooming from March to June, and common on dry mesas 

 and hills and open, sandy places, from San Francisco to the 

 Mexican border and eastward to Arizona, most common 

 toward the Coast. 



Very similar to Phacelia distans, and frequently mistaken 

 for it, is P. tanacetifolia, Benth., the Tansy-leaved Phacelia. 

 The flowers of the latter are conspicuous from their long-ex- 

 serted stamens, and there is some difference in the seed vessels 

 of the two species. The layman, however, is quite content 

 to call both Wild Heliotrope, and to enjoy the delicate sheeted 

 color which they sometimes spread over considerable areas of 

 the dry, sunlit hills. Among Spanish-speaking Americans, 

 the Wild Heliotrope is called Vervenia (vair-ven-ee'a), perhaps 

 identical with verbcnilla, a diminutive of Verbena. 



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