Frasera. GENTIAN ACEiE. 483 



narrower : flowers mostly 5 to 20 and racemose or spicate, forming a leafy thyrsus 

 (rarely solitary in depauperate plants) : calyx lobes narrow and unequal, mostly 

 linear and the longest shorter than the tube: corolla short-funnelform, blue (an 

 inch or inore in length); appendages triangular, acute, mostly 2-cleft or 2 — 4-cuspi- 

 date, shorter than the round-ovate lobes : seeds ovate or oblong, flat, wing-margined. 



Var. ovata, Gray : a form with ovate or oblong leaves, and fewer commonly 

 larger flowers, the calyx-lobes lanceolate and as long as the tube; the lobes of the 

 corolla commonly rounder. 



Northeastern portions of the Sierra Nevada, at 5,000 feet, &c. ; thenee north to British Co- 

 lumbia, ami eastward to the Rocky .Mountains from New Mexico to Rupert's Land. The var. 

 from near San Francisco (Bolandcr) to Klamath Valley in Oregon (Cronh It i/< ) ami the borders 

 of British Columbia (LyaU), appearing to be different, and with the aspect of the next, but 

 passing into ordinary tonus of the species. 



* * Ap/)i'in/n;/es of the plaits in the sinuses hardly "ni/, or short and broadly trun- 

 cate, nuked : seed.* >eiiii//e.*s : only the lowest pairs of leu res with sheutliiii;/ bnse. 



8. Or. sceptrum, Grisebach. Erect, 2 to 4 feet high, leafy: leaves from ovate 

 to oblong-lanceolate (an inch or two long) : flowers several and racemosely or spi- 

 cately clustered, sometimes almost solitary: corolla campanulate, an inch and a 

 half long; its lobes broad and rhombic-rounded: seeds somewhat fusiform, narrowed 

 into a cellular appendage at both ends. — Hook. FL ii. 57, t. If"). 



Var. humilis, Engelm. ined. Much smaller: stems slender and weaker, a foot 

 <>r two long, one— few-flowered : corolla an inch and a quarter in length; the sinuses 

 sometimes 2 — 3-crenate. — G. Meir.iesii, < iiisebach, I.e. 0. atjinis, Gray in coll. 

 E. Hall, No. 426, & Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 398. 



The ordinary form is common in Oregon, and it may confidently be expected in the north- 

 eastern part of the State. The var. humilis, on Mendocino Plains, Bolandt r ; * Ireg E. Kail; 



also Menzus, this being without much doubt G. Memiesii. At tirst view it seems abundantly 

 distinct from ff. sceptrwm,. Calyx-lobes variable, as in all these species, commonly longer than 

 the tube, and unequal, lanceolate or oblong-linear, 



4. FEASERA, Walter. 



Calyx deeply 4-parted, slightly imbricated in the bud. Corolla rotate, I parted, 

 persistent; the divisions convolute in the bud; their inner face furnished with a 

 large depressed gland or pair of glands, which are bordered by a fringe, sometimes 

 a crown of bristles or scales al their base. Stamens inserted on the very base of 

 the corolla : filaments subulate, distinct °r obscurely uionadelphous at base. Ovary 

 ovate, tapering into a conspicuous and persistent style: stigma small, 2-lobed or 

 entire. Capsule coriaceous, commonly flattened, strictly one-celled, few — 30-seeded. 

 Seeds comparatively luge, flat, sometimes margined. — Glabrous and commonly 

 stoul herbs, or one slender species puberulent, all North American, and all but one 

 far-western; with a thick and purely bitter biennial root, an erect leaf) stem, bear- 

 ing opposit 'whorled Leaves (which when broad are nervose, and in most species 



cartilaginous-margined), and abundant rather large flowers in cymose clusters; the 

 corolla ■ 1 1 1 1 1 white, yellowish, or bluish, ami commonly dark-dotted. Parts of the 

 flower sometimes in five ' 



The root of the Atlantic species, /•'. Carolinensis, has hem used in medicine as a latter tonie. 

 This (with capsule stronglj flattened parallel with the valves) and 



F. thyusiflora, Hook. Kew Jour, Bot, iii. 288, of the interior of Oregon (the onlj known 



species not either described or menti <l below), have marguiless loo i ' t glands 



upon each lol t the corolla. The style in the latter i-. short, as in Swerlia. Wc have not 



ioon anj llowors with their parts in lives, eithei in this or in / i, although both 



described bj Hooker. 



