ASPEEIFOLI^i. 261 



sistenl: nutlets large {1)4 lines long), nearly a line wide in the middle, 

 abruptly stout-beaked, the body sharply carinate and laterally margined, 

 with or without sharp transverse rugae and intervening muriculations. — 

 Plains of eastern Solano and Contra Costa counties. May. 



5. CRYPTANTHE, Lehmann. Pilose-hispid slender mostly rather 

 rigid and erect annuals, with bractless spicate flowers. Herbage and 

 root imparting no stain. Leaves alternate, narrow and entire. Calyx 

 5-parted to the base, deciduous : segments erect, usually closely embracing 

 the fruit, the often attenuate and elongated tips sometimes spreading 

 above it, and hispid with straight or hooked bristles. Nutlets 4 (some- 

 times by abortion 2 only, or 1), smooth, tuberculate or muriculate, 

 attached from the base upwards commonly to near the apex; linear 

 groove and transverse scar open or closed. 



* Nutlets muricale-roughened. 



1. C. ninriculnta (A. DC), Greene. Stoutish, %— 1 ft. high, very 

 hispid: spikes rather short and dense, usually in twos or threes at the ends 

 of the branches: calyx % lines long, the segments merely acute, not long- 

 tipped: nutlets a line long, of deltoid-ovate outline, light gray, scabrous- 

 muricate over the flattish rather thau rounded back: ventral groove and 

 its basal fork mostly closed.— Mt. Diablo and southward, at considerable 

 elevations. May, June. 



2. C. Jonesii (Gray), Greene. With stouter stem than the last, but 

 more slender and quite distinctly panicled spicale branches: calyx only a 

 line long, and nutlets little more than % line. — Mt. Tamalpais, thence 

 southward along the seaboard hills. 



3. C. micromeres (Gray), Greene. Very slender, diffusely branched, 

 6 — 10 in. high, hispid, but green, not canescent: spikes filiform, very 

 numerous but single: calyx only % line long: ovate-trigonous nutlets 

 acute, 3 of them muriculate-scabrous, the other nearly or quite Smooth. — 

 Coast Bange hills: an obscure but not rare plant. 



4. C. ambigna (Gray), Greene. Usually stout, low, with many short 

 ascending branches spicate almost throughout: herbage canescently- 

 hispid: calyx % in. long or more and, with linear-elongated segments 

 twice the length of the narrow-ovate acuminate papillose-scabrous gray 

 nutlets; these with groove and its basal bifurcation nearly closed. — 

 Inner coast ranges northward, on dry hills. 



* * Nutlets smooth and shining. 

 •i— All the four ovules maturing into nutlets. 



5. C. leiocarpa (F. & M.), Greene. Usually diffusely branched from 

 the base, the branches % — 1 "• long; whole plant canescent with an 

 appressed pubescence and some pilose-hispid hairs : inflorescence short- 



