246 POLEMONIACE^I. 



the lowest, and setaceously or spinosely pinnatifid, or the lowest sub- 

 entire; flowers in crowded bracted clusters at the ends of all the branches. 

 Calyx-tube scarious between the 5 prominent green angles or costse, not 

 accrescent, prismatical or obpyramidal; segments unequal, erect or 

 spreading, not recurved, pungent-tipped, all entire, or the two larger 

 spinulose-toothed or -cleft. Corolla tubular-funnelform or salverform. 

 Stamens and style usually straight, rarely declined. Pericarp 1—3- 

 celled, 1 — many-seeded, partially dehiscent from above, or from below, or 

 occasionally indehiscent. 



* Pericarp hyaline, indehiscent, the walls closely adherent to and trans- 

 parently exhibiting the agglutinated mass of dark-colored seeds. 



1. If. prostrata (Gray), Greene. Primary flower-cluster sessile near 

 the ground, the few branches radiating from beneath it and prostrate: 

 leaves pinnatifid, the rachis broad and strap-shaped, the segments short 

 and spreading, some of the uppermost occasionally 3-cleft: calyx-tube 

 minutely white-hirsute, thin-hyaline between the stout costse, constricted 

 over the capsule, the segments spreading, 3 spinulosely trifid, 2 subulate 

 and entire: pericarp a transparent utricle close-fitted to the glutinous 

 seeds, breaking transversely or irregularly when soaked. — Plains of the 

 lower Sacramento. May. 



2. If. leucocephala, Benth. Erect, a span high or more, the stem 

 whitish-puberulent: leaves once or twice pinnatifid, the rachis not 

 broader than the divaricate segments : calyx-tube nearly glabrous with- 

 out, white-hairy in the sinuses, little constricted over the capsule, the 

 segments erect, all entire, or one or two of them cleft: corollas larger 

 than in the preceding, white. — Very common on the plains of Solano 

 Co., beyond Suisun. April, May. 



3. If. intertexta (Benth.), Hook. Nearly simple, or branching from 

 the base, 3 — 10 in. high, neither viscid nor glandular: stem retrorsely 

 pubescent: leaves mainly glabrous, their divaricate acerose divisions 

 simple or sparingly divided: fl. densely glomerate: base of their bracts and 

 tube of calyx densely villous with long spreading white hairs: corolla pale 

 blue or white, little exceeding the calyx: capsule subglobose, 3-celled, 

 several-seeded, but walls hyaline, adherent to the seeds, breaking irregu- 

 larly.— Marin and Sonoma counties, and northward. June. 



* * Capsule of firm texture, opaque, more or less -perfectly dehiscent; 

 seeds not agglutinate in. a mass. 



4. If. cotnlaefolia (Benth.), Hook. & Am. Stem stout and rigid, 4 — 8 

 in. high, puberulent, or villous and somewhat glandular: leaves twice 

 pinnatifid into slender herbaceous soft and innocuous segments; the upper- 

 most ones, and the bracts decidedly spinescent: fl. white, 4-merous: 



