MINT FAMILY. Labiatae. 



ones toothless. It grows in open woods in the Coast 

 Ranges and Sierra Nevada mountains. S. tuberosa is from 

 three to five inches high, with tuberous rootstocks; the 

 leaves more or less oval, downy, thin in texture, with a. 

 few teeth, the lower ones purplish on the under side, with 

 long leaf-stalks, the flowers dark blue, about three-quarters 

 of an inch long, each pair, instead of standing out at 

 opposite sides of the stem, generally turn sociably together, 

 first to one side and then to the other. This blooms in 

 spring and grows in the Coast Ranges of California and 

 Oregon. 



This is the only kind, a very curious . 

 Bladder-bush 

 Salazdria spiny desert shrub, about three feet high, 



Mexic&na varying a great deal in general appearance 



Blue and white i n different situations. The stems and 

 foliage are gray-green and imperceptibly 

 downy and the flowers are over three- 

 quarters of an inch long, with a corolla which is hairy 

 outside and has a lilac and white upper lip and a dark 

 blue lower one. The calyxes become inflated and form 

 very curious papery globes, over half an inch in diameter, , 

 very pale in color, tinged with yellow, pink, or lilac, and 

 extremely conspicuous. In the desert around Needles, 

 in California, the general form of the shrub is very loose 

 and straggling, with slender twisting branches and small, 

 pale gray-green leaves, both flowers and leaves very 

 scanty and far apart, so that the bunches of bladder-like 

 pods are exceedingly conspicuous. In the Mohave Desert 

 it becomes a remarkably dense shrub, a mass of dry- 

 looking, criss-cross, tangled branches, spiky twigs, and 

 dull green leaves, speckled all over with the dark blue and 

 white flowers and the twigs crowded with pods. Some- 

 times the flowers are magenta instead of blue, but are all 

 alike on one bush. The stems are not square, as in most 

 Mints. The drawing is of a plant at Needles. 



M8 



