Amsonia. APOCYNACE^. 31 



1. VALLl&SIA, Ruiz & Pav. (Francis Vallesio, a Spanish physician.) — 

 Glabrous shrubs ; with alternate leaves, and small terminal or soon lateral cymes 



of small flowers. Calyx not glanduliferous within. — Prodr. Fl. Per. 28 t. 5. 



The principal species is — 



V. glabra, Cav. Leaves coriaceous and somewhat fleshy, shining, almost veinless 

 oblong or oblong-lanceolate, acute, short-petioled, about 2 inches long : corolla white 3 lines' 

 long : drupes half inch long, dry, slender, often single. - Ic. iii. t. 297. V. dichotoma! Uuiz & 

 Pav. (Fl. Per. ii. 26, 1. 151) & V. chiococcoides (HBK.) ; A. DC. Prodr. viii. 349 — Key West 

 Florida. (W. Ind. to Lower Calif, and Chili.) 



2. AMS6NI A, Walt. (Dedicated to Charles Amson.) — Perennial herbs (E. 

 North America and Japan) ; with very numerous membranaceous and alternate 

 leaves, varying from ovate to linear, and rather compact small cymes of bkie or 

 bluish flowers in a terminal thyrsus : fl, spring and early summer. Inside of the 

 tube of the corolla below the stamens beset with reflexed hairs. Liber of tough 

 fibres, as in Apocynum, &c. 



§ 1 . Stigma with depressed-capitate or truncate entire apex : corolla not con- 

 stricted under the limb : eastern species. 



A. Tabernsemontana, Walt. About 3 feet high, glabrate: leaves from ovate to 

 lanceolate, acuminate (2 to 5 inches long), distinctly petioled, pale beneath : calyx very 

 small : corolla in the bud slender-beaked by the convolute limb ; its lobes lanceolate, 

 becommg linear and as long as the tube ; the latter at first mostly villous at the enlarging 

 summit : follicles slender, 2 or 3 inches long. — Car. 98 ; A.DC. Prodr. viii. 385. ( Tabemce- 

 montana Amsonia, L.) A. latifolia, Michx. Fl. i. 121 ; Bot. Reg. t. 151. A. tristis, Smith in 

 Pees Cycl. A. salicifolia, Pursh, Fl. i. 184 ; Bot. Mag. 1. 1873 ; A.DC. 1. c, with var. ciliolata. 

 —Low grounds, N. Carolina and Illinois to Florida and Texas. 

 A. angustifolia, Michx. Stems (1 to 3 feet high) and commonly inflorescence and 

 leaves (or at least then- margins) when young villous with loose hairs, these deciduous : 

 leaves much crowded, linear-lanceolate to narrowly linear (an inch or two long, half line 

 to 4 Imes wide), indistinctly petioled, the margins at length somewhat revolute : calyx 

 small and short : corolla glabrous outside ; its f unnelform tube (3 or 4 lines long) little 

 longer than the ovate-oblong or at length linear-oblong lobes : follicles slender and even, 

 2 to 5 inches long. — Fl. i. 121 ; Pursh, 1. c. Tahemcemontana angustifolia, Ait. Kew. ed. l' 

 i. 300 (1789). Amsonia ciliata, Walt. Car. (1788), 98 ; A.DC. 1. c. ; Chapm. Fl. 360 ; a decep- 

 tive specific name, and barely the older. — Dry soil, N. Carolina to Florida and Texas. 



Var. Texana. A foot or two high from creeping woody subterranean shoots, com- 

 pletely glabrous : leaves of firmer texture, lanceolate-oblong to linear. —. Texas, in rocky 

 prairies and at the base of limestone hills. Pope, Lindheimer, E. Hall, &c. 

 § 2. Stigma apiculate with two distinct obtuse lobes above the truncate body : 

 tube of the corolla clavate, being constricted (at least in bud) under the conspicu- 

 ously shorter limb: calyx deeply 5-parted into slender-subulate lobes (2 or 3 

 lines long) : stems lower, more branching, and bearing smaller or simpler cymes : 

 western species. 



* Follicles torose, inclined to break into thickish articulations : corolla rather short. 

 A. brevif olia, Gray. About a foot high, glabrous : leaves thickish, ovate, varying 

 above to lanceolate, nearly sessile by a narrowed base (8 to 18 lines long) : lobes of the 

 corolla ovate or becoming oblong, 2 or 3 lines long, nearly half the length of the tube ; 

 the throat bearded only within the constricted orifice : mass of the stigma between the 

 ring and the apical lobes longer than wide : follicles 2 or 3 inches long, thickish, irregu- 

 larly moniliform, chartaceous, and disposed to break into one-seeded joints. — Proc. Am. 

 Acad. xii. 64. — Southern Utah and W. Arizona, to the border of California, Mrs. Thompson, 

 Parry, Palmer. 



A. tomentosa, Torr. A foot or more high, cinereous-tomentose or puberulent, varying 

 to glabrous : leaves from lanceolate to narrowly linear, sessile : lobes of the corolla oblong, 



