BORAGE FAMILY. Boraginaceac. 



This has bright flowers, but the foliage 

 ?! a "f to G rd0 ' is dreadfully harsh. The stem is from one 



x 1 ladle-neck, 



Buckthorn Weed to three ^ eet tall, often widely branching, 



Amsinckia with white bristles scattered over it, and 



intermedia the leaves are dull green and bristly. 



The flowers are pretty, about half an inch 

 Spring, summer 

 yy est lo n g, with narrow sepals and bnght 



orange coi-ollas, with five bright red spots 

 between the lobes. The nutlets are roughened with short, 

 hard points. These plants are very common and some- 

 times form rank thickets in fields and waste places. They 

 are very abundant in southern Arizona and are valued as a 

 grazing plant for stock and are therefore known as Saccato 

 Gordo, which means "fat grass." 



There are many kinds of Cryptanthe, most of them 

 western and difficult to distinguish. They are slender, 

 hairy plants, with small flowers, which are usually white, in 

 coiled clusters; the calyx bristly; the corolla funnel-form, 

 usually with five crests closing the throat; the nutlets 

 never wrinkled. These plants resemble white Forget-me- 

 nots and are sometimes so called. The Greek name means 

 "hidden flower, " perhaps because of the minute flowers of 

 some kinds. 



A rather attractive little plant, but in- 

 Nievitas 

 Cryptanthe conspicuous except when it grows in 



intermedia patches, when it powders the fields with 



Wh j te white, like a light fall of snow, and suggests 



p " n ^ . the pretty Spanish name, which is a 



diminutive of "nieve, " or snow. The 

 slender, roughish stem is about ten inches tall, the light 

 green leaves are hairy, with fine bristles along the edges, 

 and the pretty little flowers are white, about a quarter of 

 an inch across, with yellow crests in the throat. Pop- 

 corn Flower, Plagiobbthrys nothofiilvus, of the Northwest, 

 is also called Nievitas, as it often whitens the ground 

 with its small, fragrant, white flowers, which are very much 

 like the last. 



428 



