246 POLEMONIACE^:. 



the lowest, and setaceously or spinosely pinnatifid, or the lowest sub- 

 entire; flowers in crowded bracted clusters at the ends of all the branches. 

 Calyx-tube scarious between the 5 prominent green angles or costae, not 

 accrescent, prismatical or obpyramidal ; segments unequal, erect or 

 spreading, not recurved, pungent-tipped, all entire, or the two larger 

 spinulose-toothed or -cleft. Corolla tubular-funnelform or salverform. 

 Stamens and style usually straight, rarely declined. Pericarp 1 3- 

 celled, 1 many-seeded, partially dehiscent from above, or from below, or 

 occasionally in dehiscent. 



* Pericarp hyaline, indehiscenl, the walls closely adherent to and trans- 

 parently exhibiting the agglutinated mass of dark-colored seeds. 



1. X. prostrata (Gray), Greene. Primary flower-cluster sessile near 

 the ground, the few branches radiating from beneath it and prostrate: 

 leaves pinnatifid, the rachis broad and strap-shaped, the segments short 

 and spreading, some of the uppermost occasionally 3-cleft: calyx-tube 

 minutely white-hirsute, thin-hyaline between the stout costse, constricted 

 over the capsule, the segments spreading, 3 spinulosely trifid, 2 subulate 

 and entire: pericarp a transparent utricle close-fitted to the glutinous 

 seeds, breaking transversely or irregularly when soaked. Plains of the 

 lower Sacramento. May. 



2. X. lencocephala, Benth. Erect, a span high or more, the stem 

 whitish-puberulent: leaves once or twice pinnatifid, the rachis not 

 broader than the divaricate segments: calyx-tube nearly glabrous with- 

 out, white-hairy in the sinuses, little constricted over the capsule, the 

 segments erect, all entire, or one or two of them cleft: corollas larger 

 than in the preceding, white. Very common on the plains of Solano 

 Co., beyond Suisun. April, May. 



3. X. intertexta (Benth.), Hook. Nearly simple, or branching from 

 the base, 310 in. high, neither viscid nor glandular: stem retrorsely 

 pubescent: leaves mainly glabrous, their divaricate acerose divisions 

 simple or sparingly divided: fl. densely glomerate: base of their bracts and 

 tube of calyx densely villous with long spreading white hairs: corolla pale 

 blue or white, little exceeding the calyx: capsule subglobose, 3-celled, 

 several-seeded, but walls hyaline, adherent to the seeds, breaking irregu- 

 larly. Marin and Sonoma counties, and northward. June. 



* * Capsule of firm texture, opaque, more or less perfectly dehiscent; 

 seeds not agglutinate in a mass. 



4. X. cotul 83 folia (Benth.), Hook. & Am. Stem stout and rigid, 4 8 

 in. high, puberulent, or villous and somewhat glandular: leaves twice 

 pinnatifid into slender herbaceous soft and innocuous segments; the upper- 

 most ones, and the bracts decidedly spinescent: fl. white, 4-merous: 



