42 LINAGES. (FLAX FAMILY.) 



spikes or racemes of showy pink-red flowers. Common on the plains from 

 Colorado to British America, and eastward to Iowa and Minnesota. 



2. M. Mlinroanum, Gray. Taller, grayish or hoary-pubescent : leaves 

 broadly ovate, usually cordate at base, 3 to 5-lobed or deeply cleft : flowers scar- 

 let. Utah, Montana, and westward. 



4. SPHJERALCEA, St. Hilaire. 



Differing from Malvaslrum only in the two-ovuled cells of the ovary. 



1. S. angustifolia, Spach. Slender, erect, hoary-pubescent : leaves oblong to 

 narrowly lanceolate, usually subcordate or rounded at base, crenate or coarsely 

 toothed : flowers small. S. Colorado and southward. 



2. S. rivulariS, Torr. Taller, scabrous with a stellate pubescence: leaves 

 cordate, deeply 5 to 7-lobed, coarsely serrate : racemes leafy below, naked 

 above ; the flowers clustered OIL short peduncles, light purple or nearly white. 

 S. aceri folia of the Hay den Reports for 1870-72 and Bot. King's Exp. 

 W. Wyoming, northward and westward. 



5. ABUTILON, Tourn. INDIAN MALLOW. 



Herbs, usually soft-tomentose : flowers mostly axillary, yellow (in ours). 



1. A. parvulum, Gray. Cinereous-tomentose : stems slender, spread- 

 ing, paniculate above ; brarichlets pilose with spreading hairs : leaves small, 

 cordate, dentate, sometimes 3-lobed, canescent, tomentose beneath : peduncles 

 axillary, 1 -flowered, longer than the leaf. Ledges of rock near Canon City, 

 Colorado ( Greene), and southward. 



ORDER 16. L,INACE^E. (FLAX FAMILY.) 



Herbs, with the regular and symmetrical hypogynous flowers 4 to 6- 

 (5 in ours) merous throughout, strongly imbricated calyx and convolute 

 petals, the stamens monadelphous at the base, and the pod 8 to 10-seeded, 

 having twice as many cells as there are styles. 



1. LINUM, L. FLAX. 



Styles often united into one below ; ovary globose. Seeds flattened, ovate, 

 the coat mucilaginous when wetted. Herbs (sometimes shrubby at base) 

 with tough fibres in the bark, sessile entire alternate leaves, no stipules, and 

 cymose or pauicled flowers. 



* Petals blue. 



1. L. perenne, L. Branching above, leafy: leaves linear to linear- 

 -* lanceolate, acute : flowers large, in few-flowered corymbs or scattered on the 



leafy branches : capsule exceeding the sepals, the prominent false partitions 

 long-ciliate. Common on dry soils throughout our whole range, thence 

 northward and westward. 



# * Petals yellow : sepals glandular-margined. 



2. L. rigidum, Pursh. Stems angled, much branched : leaves linear, 

 pungently-acute, rigid, with scabrous margins : pedicels thickened at the end and 



