42 LINACE.E. (FLAX FAMILY.) 



spikes or racemes of showy pink-red flowers. — Common on the plains from 

 Colorado to British America, and eastward to Iowa and Minnesota. 



2. M. Munroanum, Gray. Taller, grayish, or hoary-puhescenl : leaves 

 broadly ovate, usually cordate at base, 3 to 5-lobed or deeply cleft : flowtrs scar- 

 let. — Utah, Montana, and westward. 



4. SPHJERALCEA, St. Hilaire. 



Differing from Malvaslrum only in the two-ovuled cells of the ovary. 



1. S. angustlfolia, Spach. Slender, erect, hoary-pubescent : leaves oblong to 

 narrowly lanceolate, usually subcordate or rounded at base, crenate or coarsely 

 toothed : flowers small. — S. Colorado and southward. 



2. S. rivularis, forr. Taller, scabrous with a stellate pubescence : leaver 

 cordate, deeply 5 to 7-lobed, coarsely serrate : racemes leafy below, naked 

 above ; the flowers clustered on short peduncles, light purple or nearly white. 

 — S. acerifolia of the Hayden Reports for 1870-72 and Bot. King's Exp. 

 W. Wyoming, northward and westward. 



5. ABTJTILON, Tourn. Indian Mallow. 



Herbs, usually soft-tomentose : flowers mostly axillary, yellow (in ours). 



1. A. parvulum, Gray. Cinereous-tomentose : stems slender, spread- 

 ing, paniculate above ; branchlets pilose with spreading hairs : leaves small, 

 cordate, dentate, sometimes 3-lobed, canescent, tomentose beneath : peduncles 

 axillary, 1-flowered, longer than the leaf. — Ledges of rock near Caiion City, 

 Colorado ( Greene), and southward. 



Order 16. LINACEdB. (Flax Family.) 



Herbs, with the regular and symmetrical hypogynous flowers 4 to 6- 

 (5 in ours) nierous throughout, strongly imbricated calyx and convolute 

 petals, the stamens monadelpbous at the base, and the pod 8 to 10-seeded, 

 having twice as many cells as there are styles. 



1. LINUM, L. Flax. 



Styles often united into one below ; ovary globose. Seeds flattened, ovate, 

 the coat mucilaginous when wetted. — Herbs (sometimes shrubby at base) 

 with tough fibres in the bark, sessile entire alternate leaves, no stipules, and 

 cymose or panicled flowers. 



* Petals blue. 



1. L. perenne, L. Branching above, leafy: leaves linear to linear- 

 fanceolate, acute : flowers large, in few-flowered corymbs or scattered on the 

 leafy branches : capsule exceeding the sepals, the prominent false partitions 

 long-ciliate. — Common on dry ^oils throughout our whole range, thence 

 northward and westward. 



* * Petals yellow : sepals glandular-margined. 



2. L. rigidum, Pursh. Stems angled, much branched : leaves linear, 

 pungently-acute, rigid, with scabrous margins : pedicels thickened at the end and 



