60 POETULACE*. 



distinct, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acute, not indistinctly parallel-veined: 

 raceme very lax, the fl. on long pedicels: petals 4 lines long, rose-purple, 

 retuse or emarginate at summit, at base narrowed to a distinct claw.— In 

 open swamps of Marin Co. 



* * Annuals; bractless except at base. 

 +- Herbage light green, scarcely glaucous. 



2. C. perfoliate, Donn. Stems 2— 16 in. high: radical leaves from 

 deltoid-cordate, deltoid or rhomboidal to rhombic-lanceolate, 1 — 2 in. 

 long, on long petioles; cauline pair joined into a more or less orbicular 

 perfoliate nearly plane or strongly concave disk %— 4 in. broad: raceme 

 short-peduncled or sessile, with an ovate acute or acuminate small folia- 

 ceous bract at base: petals 1—2 lines long, white; blade linear-oblong, 

 retuse or emarginate; claws united at base and stamens epipetalous: 

 fruiting calyx 2 lines long, twice the length of the subglobose 3-seeded 

 capsule : seed % line long, round-oval, black and shining but depressed 

 granular (under a strong lens), with a small white strophiole. Var. (1) 

 carnosa, Greene. Stout and low; the whole herbage very succulent: 

 fruiting calyx J£ in. long: seed nearly orbicular, \% lines broad. Var. 

 (2) a ugust i folia, Greene. Quite like the type save that the lowest radi- 

 cal leaves are linear, almost without distinction of blade and petiole, the 

 later ones somewhat broader and lanceolate; involucre truncate and 

 with acute angles on the upper side (opposite the deflection of the ped- , 

 icels) rounded on the other. — The most prevalent of Oalifornian winter 

 annuals, attaining its best development in the shade of oaks and laurels 

 among the hills; in open grounds much smaller; in sandy soil near the sea 

 usually reduced and depressed. The first variety is peculiar to the Mt. 

 Diablo region, growing in open grounds, in fields and waste places. 

 The second grows along with the type everywhere, and is remarkably 

 different from it in that it9 early leaves are linear, only the later ones 

 widening to the lanceolate, thus reversing the common order; for in the 

 type the earliest leaves are broader than long, only the later ones being 

 somewhat narrower. 



3. C. nubigena, Greene. Habit of the preceding, but much smaller, 

 the herbage pale and glaucescent, the white or pinkish flowers twice as 

 large: leaves all linear: involucre orbicular. — On the summits of Mt. 

 Hamilton, and Mt. Tamalpais. 



■\~ H— Herbage glaucous, in age flesh-colored. 



i. C. gypsophiloides, Fisch. & Mey. Pale and glaucous, 4 — 10 in. 

 high : radical leaves linear, one-half or one-third as long as the slender 

 scapes; cauline pair short and united on one side to form a quadrate 

 disk-like involucre, or longer, lanceolate-acuminate and lesB perfectly 



