258 ASPERIFOLI^:. 



axils. Corolla minute, white. Nutlets flattish depressed and laciuiate- 

 bordered, or pectinately setose around the margin, the bristles or prickles 

 uncinate at tip. 



1. P. penicillata (H. & A.), A. DC. Diffusely spreading branches 

 only a few inches long: nutlets divergent in pairs, oblong, surrounded by 

 an undulate or pandurate wing which at the apex of the nutlet is thickly 

 beset with uncinate bristles. Common in the interior of Calif., especially 

 southward; rare in our district, but found in Napa Valley. 



2. P. pusilla (A. DC.), Gray. Erect, somewhat flexuous, 24 in. 

 high: nutlets equably divergent, cuneate-obovate, wingless, and with a 

 carinate midnerve, the acute margin beset with a row of slender uncinate 

 bristles. Napa Valley and northward. 



3. ALLOCARYA, Greene. Low herbs, ours annual, with linear entire 

 leaves, the lowest always opposite and connate-perfoliate : branches 

 numerous and commonly depressed, racemose almost throughout. 

 Plants vernal in their flowering, confined to low moist grounds, herbage 

 usually light green and somewhat succulent, more or less hirsute. Ped- 

 icels turbinate-thickened and more or less distinctly 5-angled under the 

 calyx, persistent, somewhat indurated in age. Calyx 5-parted to the 

 base; segments spreading. Corolla salverform with short tube, yellow 

 throat and white limb. Nutlets ovate or lanceolate, crustaceous, opaque 

 or vitreous-shining, smooth or variously tuberculate and rugose, muri- 

 culate or even strongly glochidiate, often carinate on one or both sides, 

 attached by an infra-medial or basal, concave, but sometimes raised and 

 stipitate scar. 



1. A. stipitata, Greene. Erect, simple, or with ascending branches 

 from the base, 1018 in. high: herbage light green, apparently glabrous, 

 yetroughish, slightly, with sparse and short setae: calyx nearly sessile; 

 segments spreading, foliaceous and accrescent, in fruit often % in. long: 

 corolla short-funnelform, ^ /^ in. broad; nutlets ovate-lanceolate, car- 

 inate for the whole length of the ventral face, and a little past the apex, 

 the back covered with blunt tuberculations and interrupted transverse 

 rugae; scar exactly basal, roundish and separated from the body of the 

 nutlet by a short but distinct stipe. Napa Valley, and plains of the lower 



. Sacramento and San Joaquin. May. 



2. A. Californica (F. & M.), Greene. Slender, sparingly setose, 

 diffusely branching, the branches 615 in. long, weak and reclining: 

 racemes with few bracts at base : calyx-segments slender, not accrescent, 

 spreading in fruit: nutlet ovate, % line long, keeled, rugulose and gran- 

 ulated as in the last: scar roundish, nearly basal, not stipitate. Common 

 in low fields. April June. 



3. A. stricta, Greene. Slender, strictly erect and somewhat succulent, 

 simple, or with several scarcely divergent spicate branches above, barely 



