MENTZELIA. LOASAOE^, 239 



larly. (?) Seed large, tinged, ovoid or subglobose, smooth, not 

 margined; hilum linear, acute: cotyledons thick, remaining 

 under ground in germination. Stems elongated and climbing, 

 from large fusiform perennial roots ; leaves cordate, palmately 

 5-7-lobed or angled ; tendrils 2-5-cleft; flowers small, white. 



M. Oregaua Megarrhirza Oregana Torr, Watson. Stems 10-30 feet 

 long; scabrous or nearly smooth; leaves cordate or reniform 3-6 inches 

 broad, deeply 5-7 lobed, lobes broad-triangular, abruptly acute, mucron- 

 ate, sterile flowers lt)-20 in slender racemes 4-6 in. long, on slender pedi- 

 cels; corolla 3-4 lines broad; fertile flowers without abortive stamens; 

 ovary globose, densely echinate, 2-4-celled, the cells \-i ovuled, fruit glo- 

 bose to oblong, 1-2 in. in diameter covered with stout fleshy spines, 1-sev- 

 ■eral-seeded, seeds orbicular 6-10 lines in diameter. In alluvial soil, Oregon 

 and Washington to Idaho and Montana. 



Oedee XL. LOASACE.iE. Reichb. Consp. 161. 



Herbs with alternate or opposite leaves without stipules and 

 usually showy flowers, the herbage often clothed with bristly 

 hairs. Sepals united into an equally 5-lobed calyx, persistent. 

 Petals 5 sometimes 10 (the inner seriesmostly dissimilar) insert- 

 ed in the throat of the calyx. Stamens numerous, rarely few or 

 definite, inseited with the petals, some of the outer filaments 

 often dilated or petaloid and mostly sterile, the others com- 

 monly disposed in fascicles opposite the petals and slightly 

 united. Ovary coherent with the tube of the calyx, 1-celled 

 with mostly 3 parietal placentae; ovules numerous. or sometimes 

 few rarely solitary, styles usually united into one. Fruit 

 mostly capsular or succulent, crowned with the ' limb of the 

 •calyx. Seeds anatropous, usually with more or less fleshy 

 albumen. 



1 MENTZELIA L. Gen. n. 670. 



Annual or biennial herbs with alternate mostly coarsely 

 toothexi or.pinnatifld leaves and mostly showy flowers. Calyx- 

 tui'e cylindrical to ovoid or turbinate; the limb 5-lobed, per- 

 sistent. Petals 6 or 10. Stamens numerous, , inserted below the 

 petals on the throat of the calyx and not adnate to them : fila- 

 ments free or in clusters opposite the petals, filiform, or the 

 outer more or less dilated or sometimes petaloid and barren. 

 ■Ovary truncate at the summit, 1-celled : style 3-cleft, the lobes 

 often twisted : ovules pendulous or horizontal, few to many in 

 one or two rows on the three linear parietal placentae. Capsule 

 :ghort-oblong to cylindrical, few to inany-seeded, opening by 

 valves or usually irregularly at the truncate apex. Seeds flat or 

 angled. 



§ 1. Teachyphytum T. & G. Fl. i, 5!-'.3. Seeds pendulous, 

 few to rather many, small, in 1-3 rows, irregularly angled or 

 somewhat cubical, not winged, opaque, minutely tuberculate: 

 flowers in terminal cymes, inostly small : calyx-limb 5-parted : 



