February 2(J, i 906 1 1 7 



ers show a tube but little longer than the calyx, due to the less 

 advanced age of the flower. These smaller and darker flowered 

 forms look unlike the larger one in the field, but no good char- 

 acters appear upon which to separate them. 



Gilia stellata 



Annual: stems about 2 dm. high, sparingly branched above, 

 the branches ascending, short, 5 cm. or less, glandular pubes- 

 cent, especially below: leaves mostly basal in a rosette-like tuft, 

 oblong, 5 cm. long, i cm. wide, pinnately divided into oblong 

 divisions, which are cut into irregular pungently acute lobes, 

 both faces beset with short white somewhat stellate hairs, the 

 upper face greener than the lower; the few stem leaves short, 

 the uppermost bract-like, pubescent like the basal ones: flowers 

 somewhat crowded, mostly terminal on stoutish pedicels of 4 mm. 

 or less: calyx narrowly campanulate, about 4 mm. high, mem- 

 branous except for the broad green midvein which terminates in 

 the narrowly lanceolate pungently acuminate lobes i mm. long: 

 corollas funnel-form, exserted 6 mm. from the calyx when fully 

 mature, the tube yellow at the base, above that purple dotted, 

 the throat pale, the lobes pale violet or deep lavender, roundish 

 obovate, 3 mm. long and nearly as wide, blunt, although some- 

 what narrowed at apex: stamens reaching to the corolla lobes; 

 anthers roundish: pistil about i mm. shorter than the stamens, 

 the stigma capitate, less than i mm. across. 



The type is no. 7698, collected April 14, 1905, on stony 

 hills near Randsburg, Kern county, California. It is a member 

 of the G. latifiora group, and grew near one of the smaller 

 flowered forms of that species, but at slightly higher elevations. 

 It is readily distinguished by its peculiar pubescence and smaller 

 paler flowers. It can hardly be referred to G. latiflora cana 

 Jones, Cont. West. Bot. 8: 35. 1898, which is described: "leaves 

 densely and permanently white-woolly. Flowers longer and 

 paler." 



