PITCHER SAGE (Sphacele calycina, Ben h.). Flowers dull 

 white or purplish, long bell-shaped about an inch in length, 

 with 5 roundish lobes, one longer than the others; the loose- 

 fitting, prominently veined, sharp-toothed calyx becoming in- 

 flated in age; flowers in axillary pairs, disposed in a loose, term- 

 inal, leafy raceme. Leaves 2 to 4 inches long, opposite, 

 toothed, and wrinkled like those of the garden sage. A 

 shrubby, branching plant, 2 to 5 feet high, rather hairy, 

 and exhaling a sage-like odor. Blooming in spring and early 

 summer on dry hills of Central and Southern California. 



This is the only United States species of a genus that is 

 principally South American. Our plant, however, is so vari- 

 able as to have given rise to two or three named varieties, all 

 confined to California, with distinctions hardly marked 

 enough to interest the non-botanical. The flower is a fairly 

 good imitation of a miniature pitcher, the prolongation of one 

 of the corolla lobes simulating the lip of a pitcher, while the 

 loose calyx in which the corolla sits may pass for the basin that 

 5s a well-regulated pitcher's natural concomitant. 



170 



