JDecember 20, 1905. 10 r 



are concealed by the broadly ovate acuminate bracts, are i cm. 

 long, 2 mm. in diameter, acute, silky with appressed hairs; the 

 seeds greyish-brown, not shining. 



Boisduvalia iiiacraiitha 



Annual, the larger plants with very strongly developed 

 roots: stems occasionally branched near the base in large plants, 

 erect, 1-4.5 ^^^i- ^^^S^'^i glabrous below, softly pubescent above, 

 leafy throughout, the leaves ascending, sessile, the lowest glab- 

 rous, somewhat oblanceolate, 2 or 3 cm. long, about 8 mm. wide, 

 acutish, with few inconspicuous teeth; those of the middle part 

 of the stem lanceolate, the base not narrowed, acute or shortly 

 acuminate, 3 or 4 cm. long, 6 mm. wide, sharply but distantly 

 serrulate, somewhat pubescent; those of the upper part of the 

 stem usually entire, more acuminate, more pubescent and some- 

 what wider: calyx villous, 7 cm. long, cleft nearly to the base 

 into linear-lanceolate lobes somewhat over i mm. wide at the 

 base: corollas rose-purple, 12 mm. long; the petals cuneate, 7mm. 

 wide across the top, 2-lobed by a notch 2 mm. deep, the lobes 

 rounded and obtuse, delicately veined, the veins anastomosing 

 along the edges: longer stamens 7 mm. long, shorter ones 5 mm, 

 long, the oblong anthers a little over i mm: pistil 7 mm. long, 

 the disc-like stigma i mm. across: capsules sessile, linear-lan- 

 ceolate, 2 cm. long, a little over 2 mm. across, the apex slender 

 and beak-like: seeds greyish-brown, slightly shining, rather 

 large, over i mm. long, somewhat half diamond-shaped viewed 

 from the side. The measurements the maximum ones; the 

 floral characters drawn from living plants. 



The type is no. 7906, collected May 30, 1905, about two 

 miles northeast of Redding^, Shasta county, California, in moist 

 gravel and sand, where it was locally abundant. It is a hand- 

 seme species, well marked in all its characters and remarkable 

 for its large flowers. It may perhaps be well distributed over 

 the slightly elevated plateau at the upper end of the Sacramento 

 valley, as there is a small specimen of it from Butte county in 

 the herbarium of the California Academv of Sciences. 



