132 Muhlenbergia, Volume 8 



A SMALL FLOWERED MIMULUS 

 By a. a. Heller 



^ Mimuliis micranthus sp. nov. 



Plant flaccid and weak, stems 5 or 6dm. high, often rooting 

 at the lower nodes, quadrangular, slightly winged angled above, 

 about 4 mm. thick, glabrous and slightly glaucescent, sparingly 

 leafy, the lower internodes i dm. or more long: lower petioles 



3 cm. long, 1.5 mm. wide, slightly winged, blade more or less 

 cordate-orbicular, 2.5 cm. across, thin, dull green, glabrous, irreg- 

 ularly and coarsely crenate, a few small lyrate divisions at the 

 base; uppermost leaves reduced, acting as bracts, sessile and 

 connate,, bearded with chaffy white hairs: flowers mostly ter- 

 minal, but a few scattered near the middle of the stem: pedicels 

 very slender, the lowermost 2ctn. long, the upper less than icm.: 

 calyx 8 mm, long after anthesis, slightly pubernlent, purple 

 mottled, only one of the purple edged acute lobes noticeably 

 larger than the others: lemon yellow corollas i cm. long, the 

 tube 8 mm. loug, cylindrical, about 1.5 mm. in diameter up to a 

 point 2.5 mm. from the base, where it is slightly constricted, 

 then widening and inflated but somewhat flattened laterally, 



4 mm. wide, 2 mm. deep, the upper side slightly convex, the 

 inside of the tube at this point with two channels and two con- 

 spicuous lines of yellow hairs on the lower side, the upper with 

 two inconspicuous rows of hairs; throat nearly closed; lobes of 

 the corolla 2mm. long, broad and rounded, the upper lip with a 

 spread of 5 mm., its lobes curved upward, lower lip 8 mm. 

 wide, its lobes spreading or slightly downcUrved, the middle one 

 with one or two minute red dots at the base: pods 4 mm. long 

 tipped with the 2 mm. long style with pubescent stigma lobes: 

 the small seeds ovoid, pale cinnamon red. 



The type, my ^4/0^ has been lying in my herbarium under 

 the above name since 1904, when it was collected May 13th two 

 or three miles west of Congress Springs, Santa Clara county, 

 California, by a roadside ditch under a wet and dripping bank. 

 I also collected it on the hills west of Los Gatos, April 30, 1908, 

 no. 8pj6. Fragments of it have also been brought in from Los 

 Gatos canyo.n So far I know it onl\' as from the above men- 

 tioned places, the total range not over ten miles. While ascend- 

 ing, the stems are very weak. It seems to have no near rela- 

 tives in the group of AI. Langsdorfii, to which it belongs. 



