GENUS I. MADDER FAMILY. 251 
or less concave, not angled. Seed-coat reticulate or roughened; endosperm horny; embryo 
club-shaped. [Named in honor of Dr. William Houston, botanist and collector in South 
America, died 1733.] : 
About 25 species, natives of North America and Mexico. Type species: Houstonia coerulea L. 
* Plants 1’-7’ high; peduncles 1-flowered. 
+ Peduncles filiform, 1’-2%4’ long. 
Erect ; leaves obovate or spatulate, narrowed into petioles. 1. H. coerulea. 
Diffuse or spreading; leaves nearly orbicular. 2. H. serpyllifolia. 
Tt Peduncles 3”-18” long, stouter. 
Calyx-lobes narrow, about equalling the capsule. 3. H. patens. 
Calyx-lobes broad; much exceeding the capsule. ; 4. H. minima. 
**« Plants 4’-18’ high; flowers cymose. 
Calyx-lobes lanceolate-subulate, 2 to 3 times as long as the capsule. 5. H. lanceolata. 
Calyx-lobes linear-subulate, scarcely longer than the capsule. 
Leaves broad, ovate, or ovate-lanceolate. : 6. H. purpurea. 
Leaves oblong or spatulate, ciliate. 7. H, ciliolata. 
Leaves linear-lanceolate or oblanceolate, not ciliate. 8. H. longifolia. 
Leaves filiform or narrowly linear. 
Flowers loosely cymose on filiform pedicels; leaves not fascicled. . A. tenuifolia. 
Flowers densely cymose on very short pedicels ; leaves usually fascicled. 10. H. angustifolia. 
1. Houstonia coertlea L. Bluets. 
Innocence. Eyebright. Fig. 3912. 
Houstonia coerulea L. Sp. Pl. 105. 1753. 
Hedyotis coerulea Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 1: 286, 
1833. 
Olde tianitea coerulea A. Gray, Man. Ed. 2, 
174. 1856. 
Erect, 3’-7’ high, glabrous, or nearly so, 
perennial by slender rootstocks and form- 
ing dense tufts. Lower and basal leaves 
spatulate or oblanceolate, about 6” long, 
sometimes hirsute or ciliate, narrowed into 
a petiole, the upper oblong, sessile; flowers 
solitary on filiform terminal and axillary 
peduncles; corolla salverform, violet, blue, 
or white with a yellow center, 4’-6” broad, 
its tube slender and about the length of the 
lobes or longer; capsule didymous, com- 
pressed, about 2” broad and broader than 
long, the upper half free from the calyx 
and shorter than its lobes. 
In open grassy places, or on wet rocks, 
Miquelon and Nova Scotia to Quebec, New 
York, Michigan, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee 
and Missouri. April-July, or producing a few 
flowers through the summer. Includes several } 
races. Called also quaker-ladies, quaker- hb) 
bonnets, Venus’-pride. Bright eyes. Angel- 
eyes. Blue-eyed-grass or -babies. Wild forget- 
me-not. Nuns. Star-of-Bethlehem. Little 
washerwoman. 
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2. Houstonia serpyllifolia Michx. 
Thyme-leaved Bluets. 
Fig. 3913. 
Houstonia serpyllifolia Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 
8 
1: 85. 1803. 
se serpyllifolia T. & G. Fl, N. A. 2: 39. 
1841. 
Perennial; stems prostrate or diffuse, 
slender, glabrous, 4-10’ long. Leaves or- 
bicular or broadly oval, abruptly petioled, 
”_4" long, sometimes hispidulous; or those 
of the flowering stems narrower, distant; 
flowers on terminal and axillary filiform 
peduncles; corolla usually deep blue, 4-6” 
broad, its tube rather shorter than the 
lobes; capsule similar to that of the pre- 
ceding species but usually slightly larger, 
nearly as long as the calyx. 
Somerset County, Pennsylvania, to the high 
mountains of Virginia and West Virginia, 
pam Carolina, Georgia and east Tennessee. 
ay. 
