258 ASPEHIFOLia:. 



axils. Corolla minute, white. Nutlets flattish depressed and laciniate- 

 bordered, or pectinately setose around the margin, the bristles or prickles 

 uncinate at tip. 



1. P. penicillata (H. & A.), A. DC. Diffusely spreading branches 

 only a few inches long: nutlets divergent in pairs, oblong, surrounded by 

 an undulate or pandurate wing which at the apex of the nutlet is thickly 

 beset with uncinate bristles. — Common in the interior of Calif., especially 

 southward; rare in our district, but found in Napa Valley. 



2. P. pusilla (A. DC), Gray. Erect, somewhat flexuous, 2 — 4 in. 

 high: nutlets equably divergent, cuneate-obovate, wingless, and with a 

 carinate midnerve, the acute margin beset with a row of slender uncinate 

 bristles.— Napa Valley and northward. 



3. ALLOCARY A, Greene. Low herbs, ours annual, with linear entire 

 leaves, the lowest always opposite and connate-perfoliate: branches 

 numerous and commonly depressed, racemose almost throughout. 

 Plants vernal in their flowering, confined to low moist grounds, herbage 

 usually light green and somewhat succulent, more or less hirsute. Ped- 

 icels turbinate-thickened and more or less distinctly 5-angled under the 

 calyx, persistent, somewhat indurated in age. Calyx 5-parted to the 

 base; segments spreading. Corolla salverform with short tube, yellow 

 throat and white limb. Nutlets ovate or lanceolate, criistaceous, opaque 

 or vitreous-shining, smooth or variously tuberculate and rugose, muri- 

 culate or even strongly glochidiate, often carinate on one or both sides, 

 attached by an infra-medial or basal, concave, but sometimes raised and 

 stipitate scar. 



1. A. stipitata, Greene. Erect, simple, or with ascending branches 

 from the base, 10 — 18 in. high: herbage light green, apparently glabrous, 

 yet roughish, slightly, with sparse and short setae: calyx nearly sessile; 

 segments spreading, foliaceous and accrescent, in fruit often % in. long: 

 corolla short-funnelform, % — % in. broad; nutlets ovate-lanceolate, car- 

 inate for the whole length of the ventral face, and a little past the apex, 

 the back covered with blunt tuberculations and interrupted transverse 

 rugse; scar exactly basal, roundish and separated from the body of the 

 nutlet by a short but distinct stipe. — Napa Valley, and plains of the lower 

 Sacramento and San Joaquin. May. 



2. A. Californica (P. & M.), Greene. Slender, sparingly setose, 

 diffusely branching, the branches 6 — 15 in. long, weak and reclining: 

 racemes with few bracts at base : calyx-segments slender, not accrescent, 

 spreading in fruit: nutlet ovate, }£ line long, keeled, rugulose and gran- 

 ulated as in the last: scar roundish, nearly basal, not stipitate. — Common 

 in low fields. April — June. 



3. A. stricta, Greene. Slender, strictly erect and somewhat succulent, 

 simple, or with several scarcely divergent spicate branches above, barely 



