BORRAGINACEiE. 425 



-I— -I— Typical species, slender-stemmed, bractless in all well-developed spikes ; with midrib of 

 narrow setose-hispid sepals not conspicuously if at all thickened: nutlets very smooth and 

 mostly shining, acute or acuminate, with rounded sides and rather thin or brittle pericarp, at- 

 tached by a part or even the whole of the slender ventral groove (with or without some areolar 

 dilatation at base) to a narrow gynobase. 

 ++ Nutlet solitary (very rarely two maturing, the others early abortive), conspicuously acuminate, 

 attached for not more than the lower third to the short and narrow gynobase, which it very much 

 surpasses: spikes commonly in twos or threes, slender in fruit. 

 = Sepals narrowly lanceolate, evenly beset with short and ascending hooked bristles: nutlet 

 ovate, plano-convex, equalling the sepals: anomalous in the subdivision. 

 K. Sparsiflora, Greene. Small, slender, with diffuse branches, bearing simple or forked 

 and sparsely few-fruited filiform spikes, strigulose-pubescent and the narrow linear leaves 

 minntely hispid : calyx in fruit a line and a half to almost two lines long, ascending, equalled 

 by the nutlet, which is attached by a line hardly over one fourth of its length and furcate 

 at base. — Bull. i. 203. — Lake Co., California, Mrs. Layne-Curran. 



= = Sepals narrowly linear or verging to filiform in age, armed with long and rigid spreading 

 or deflexed bristles, which are more copious and stronger towards the base, their attenuate tips 

 straight or disposed to be hooked: nutlet subterete, ovate-lanceolate and rostellate-acuminate, 

 shorter than the sepals: flowers numerous in the spikes. 

 K. oxycarya, Gray. Commonly a foot or two high and strict, strigulose with minute 

 close pubescence, and the linear leaves minutely more or less strigulose-hispid : calyx in 

 fruit erect, appressed to the rhachis, 2 to 2£ lines long; the sepals filiform-linear and thickish 

 below, their base very hispid with deflexed and strong but not pungent bristles : nutlet hardly 

 flattened ventrally, the groove of attachment enlarged at base but not furcate. — Proc. Am. 

 Acad. xx. 269, where the syn. Myosotis flaccida, Dougl. is verified, the " nuces 4 " of Hook. 

 Fl., &c, being a mistake. Eritrichium oxycaryum, Gray, p. 193. — Washington Terr, to Cali- 

 fornia, more common northward, first coll. by Douglas. 

 Tg" . mi.cr6stach.ys, Greene. Earely over a foot high, more spreading, -hispidulous or 

 hispid : fructiferous calyx ascending or erect but hardly appressed to the rhachis, from 

 barely a line to nearly 2 lines in length, with mostly less attenuate and less rigid sepals, 

 hispid with widely spreading (but not deflexed) and somewhat pungent bristles: nutlet 

 flatter ventrally, the groove of attachment divaricately forked and somewhat open at 

 base. — Gray, I.e. K. leiocarpa & Eritrichium sp., Gray, Jour. Bost. Nat. Hist. vii. 147. 

 K. rostellata, Greene, Bull. Calif. Acad. i. 203, the largest-flowered form, the original of 

 K. microstachys being of the most depauperate. — California, from Colusa Co. southward; 

 first coll. by Xantus at Tejon. 



++ ++ Nutlets usually all four maturing, and all alike (not over a line long), either flattish or 

 angled ventrally, ovate in outline and acute or short-acuminate, attached for half or nearly whole 

 length to the subulate gynobase; the slender groove not dilated at base into an open areola or 

 scar/ 

 = But simple and continuous to the very base of the nutlet: spikes simple or occasional!)' in 

 pairs, very often leafy at base and as it were interrupted and glomerate, the lower part of the 

 inflorescence being reduced to sessile clusters or even to single flowers seemingly axillary to a 

 leaf, but the well-developed spikes bractless: stems or branches diffuse, a span to a foot long. 

 K. leiocarpa, Fisch. & Meyer. Nutlets attached by the straight ventral groove nearly 

 its whole length to the subulate gynobase. — Lid. Sem. Hort. Petrop. 1835, 36; A. DC. 

 Prodr. x. 135; Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xx. 270. Eritrichium leiocarpum, Watson, p. 194, 

 contains this and the three following. — Washington Terr, to California near the coast. 

 K. affinis, Gray, 1. c. Nutlets commonly more turgid and thinner-walled, attached only up 

 to the middle to the slender-pyramidal gynobase, the free apical portion a little diverging. 



— Interior of Washington Terr, and Oregon to the Sierra Nevada in California, and east to 

 Idaho. Perhaps passes into the preceding. 



= = Groove of the more or less trigonous nutlets divergently forked at base, but no open areola: 

 spikes naked and more pedunculate, not rarely in pairs. 

 K. Torreyana, Gray, 1. c. Hirsute-hispid, and the calyx very setose : fructiferous sepals 

 attenuate upward : nutlets ovate, acute, attached barely up to the middle to the subulate- 

 pyramidal gynobase.— Eritrichium leiocarpum, Watson, Bot. King Exp. 244, in large part. 



— Not rare from the coast districts of California to S. Idaho and Nevada. 



