522 BORRAGINACE^E. Litliospermum. 



3. LITHOSPERMUM, Tourn. Gromwell. Puccoon. 

 Calyx 5-parted. Corolla salverform or funnelform ; its lobes rounded, imbricated 

 in the bud. Filaments short. Style slender : stigma capitate - 2-lobed or some- 

 times truncate. Ovary of 4 distinct lobes. JSTutlets 4, or by abortion fewer, ovate, 

 bony, naked, usually white and smooth, erect, attached to the flat receptacle by the 

 base ; the scar flat, rather small. — Herbs, usually with red or violet-colored roots 

 which contain coloring-matter, pubescent or hairy ; the flowers in or near the axils 

 of the upper leaves, or leafy-spiked. 



A genus of a considerable number of species in the Old World, several in North America, of 

 wliieh the most striking are the Puccoons. One of these, L. cancsccns, reaches Arizona, and a 

 species much like it has been sparingly found in California, viz. : 



1. L. Californicum, Gray. Perennial, a foot or two high, soft-hirsute through- 

 out : leaves lanceolate or oblong (about 2 inches long) : corolla apparently bright 

 light yellow, hardly an inch long ; its narrow tube almost twice the length of the 

 soft-hirsute calyx ; the open and enlarged throat nearly naked ; lobes very short. — 

 L. canescens, var., Torr. Pacif. K. Eep. iv. 124. 



Grass Valley, Nevada Co., Bigdow. Plumas Co., Lemmon. The former in flower, the latter 

 in fruit : i'ruiting branches not elongated. 



2. L. pilosum, Nutt. Perennial, pale or hoary with a soft hirsute pubescence : 

 stems numerous from a stout root, a foot high, very leafy : leaves narrowly lanceo- 

 late (2 to 4 inches long), mostly tapering from base to apex : flowers crowded in a 

 leafy cluster : corolla dull greenish-yellow, hardly half an inch long, silky outside, 

 the open throat naked or nearly so : nutlets broadly ovate, acute, smooth and pol- 



"ished. — Jour. Acad. Philad. viii. 43 ; Watson, Bot. King Exp. 238. L. ruderale, 

 Dougl. in Hook. Fl. ii. 89. 



Hills and canons of the Sierra Nevada (Sierra Valley, Carson, &c. ), and through the interior to 

 British Columbia, and east to Dakota. 



4. MYOSOTIS, Linn. Scorpion-Grass. Forget-me-not. 



Calyx 5-parted or 5-cleft. Corolla between salverform and rotate ; the tube 

 rarely surpassing the calyx ; throat with small and blunt crests at base of the 

 rounded lobes ; these convolute in the bud. Stamens, pistil, &c., as in Lithosper- 

 mum. Nutlets smooth, somewhat compressed, thin-crustaceous in texture, attached 

 to the flat receptacle by the very base ; the scar minute. — Low herbs, mostly soft- 

 hairy ; with small flowers in so-called spikes or racemes, bractless, but sometimes 

 there is a leaf or two at base of the inflorescence. Corolla blue, varying to purple 

 or white. 



Species rather numerous in the cooler parts of the Old World, very few in the New. None 

 have yet been detected in California ; but the following are not unlikely to occur, and are there- 

 fore briefly characterized. Both are of the section in which the calyx is closed or with lobes erect 

 in fruit, and some of its loose hairs or bristles minutely hooked at tip. 



1. M. verna, Nutt. Annual or biennial, at first erect, a span to a foot high, 

 roughish-hirsute : leaves spatulate-oblong : racemes strict, often leafy at base : pedi- 

 cels in fruit equalling or shorter than the rather unequally 5-cleft hispid calyx, the 

 lower part erect, the upper spreading : corolla white, very small. — M. versicolor 

 & M. flaccida in part. Hook. Fl. (1). Lycopsis Virginica, Linn. 



Coast of Oregon ; a large and loose form, with nutlets unusually large (var. macros2)crma, 

 Chapman) ; rather common through the Atlantic States. 



2. M. sylvatica, Hoffmann, var. alpestris, Koch. Perennial, in loose tufts, 

 pubescent or barely hirsute, a span or so in lieight : leaves oblong-linear or lance- 



