Mertensia. BORRAGINACExE. 199 



§ Plagiobothrys, intermediate between that group and Antiphytum, hirsute, hardly- 

 hispid, branched from the base ; the stems or branches diffuse, a span or two 

 high ; leaves spatulate-linear, all alternate ; scorpioid spikes slender and at length 

 remotely flowered, bractless, or with some scattered foliaceous bracts : white corolla 

 with lobes sometimes almost convolute in the bud. — Gray in Benth. & Hook. 

 Gen. ii. 854 ; Proc. Am. Acad. xi. 89, xii. 163. 



B. Arizonioa, Gray, 1. c. Lobes of the corolla a line or less long ; the throat somewhat 

 narrowed by very small and rather obscure intrusive folds : nutlets attenuate and much 

 compressed at apex, sparsely cristate-muricate, hardly longer than their thick basal stipes, 

 which are united at base in pairs over the prominent receptacle, the pair with a very large 

 excavated scar. — Arizona, on the Verde Mesa, Dr. Smart. Also near Tucson, Greene. 



E. Calif ornica, Gray. Corolla larger ; the orbicular lobes a line or two in length ; the 

 throat closed by strong andpuberulent intrusive appendages : nutlets smaller (a line long), 

 less acute, coarsely rugose-alveolate and the sharp elevated rugosities often echinulate ; 

 the stipes supra-basal, all four wholly distinct, laterally compressed, shorter than the 

 diameter of the nutlet ; the small caruncular scar concave. — Proc. Am. Acad. xii. 164. — 

 San Bernardino Co., S. E. California, Parry & Lernmon, no. 278, coll. 1^70'. 



14. ANTfPHYTtnVI, DC., partly. (Jlrti, opposite, and cpvTOv, plant; 

 the leaves in the typical species being all opposite, in this unlike most of the 

 order.) — Restricted in Benth. & Hook. Gen. PL ii. 859 to Brazilian species, all 

 suffruticose and opposite-leaved, with short-stipitate areola to the nutlets. But 

 the subjoined species exhibit the characters of the genus in a lesser degree. — 

 Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. x. 54. (In separating from the insertion, a delicate 

 funicle-like process, which penetrated a minute central perforation of the scar, 

 persists on the flat gynobase.) 



A. lieliotropioid.es, A.DG. Woody perennial ? a foot or two high, panieulately much 

 branched, softly strigose-hirsute and at least when young canescent : leaves linear, an inch 

 or less long; the lower mainly opposite : flowers rather small and scattered, on filiform 

 pedicels much longer than the calyx, the lobes of which are oblong-linear : corolla almost 

 rotate, with conspicuous crests in the open throat : stigma capitate : scar of the nutlets 

 large and sessile, but edged with an acute salient margin ; the minute perforation above 

 its centre. — Prodr. x. 122; Gray, 1. c. Eritrichium heliotropioides, Torr. Bot. Mex. Bound. 

 140, as to the plant of Berlandier only. — San Carlos, on the Mexican side of the Rio 

 Grande, close to Texas. Turgid nutlets only half a line long, not (as in the next) con- 

 tracted behind the scar. 



A. floribundum, Gray, 1. c. Herbaceous from a " perennial " or perhaps biennial root, 

 a foot or two high, panieulately branched above, cinereous witli fine and close and with a 

 coarser nearly hispid pubescence : leaves perhaps all alternate, narrowly linear, an inch or 

 so long ; the upper gradually diminished to linear-subulate bracts : flowers very short- 

 pedicelled, in short panicled racemes or spikes : lobes of the calyx linear-lanceolate, acu- 

 minate : corolla rotate-campanulate (3 lines in diameter), not appendaged in the throat: 

 filaments longer than the anthers : stigma 2-lobed : nutlets granulate, acute ; the salient 

 ventral edge terminated a little above the base of the nutlet by the small and protuberant 

 or slightly stipitate scar. — Eritrichium floribundum, Torr. I.e. — South-western Texas, on 

 or near the Rio Grande, in the mountains of Puerte de Paysano, Bigelotc. Flowers some- 

 times 6-merous. 



15. MERTfiNSIA, Roth. (Francis Charles Mertens, a German botanist, 

 1797.) — Perennials, of the cooler parts of the northern hemisphere, either gla- 

 brous and remarkably smooth, or with some soft or moderately scabrous pubes- 

 cence ; the leaves commonly broad, and the lowermost petioled ; the flowers 

 commonly handsome, blue, purple, or rarely white, paniculate-racemose or cymose, 



