MINT FAMILY. Labiatae. 
sand, as this is a famous bee-plant and the white honey 
made from it is peculiarly delicious. It grows abundantly 
in valleys and on hillsides, from Santa Barbara to San 
Diego, and has a very strong disagreeable smell. 
A conspicuous shrubby plant, from 
three to six feet high, with stiffish leaves, 
Ball Sage 3 Z 
Ramona stachy. Which are downy on the under side, 
oides (Audibertia) Wrinkled on the upper, and grayish-green 
Lilac, white and downy when young, but become 
beens smoother and dark green as they grow 
older. The flowers are pale lilac or white, 
half an inch long, and the calyx-lobes and bracts are tipped 
with bristles. The compact flower clusters, usually about 
Black Sage, 
‘five in number and rather small, are arranged in tiers on 
long slender stalks, which stand up stiffly all over the 
bush. This is common on southern hillsides, often forming 
dense thickets for long distances, smells strong of sage and 
is an important bee-plant. 
There are several kinds of Hyptis, very abundant in 
South America and Mexico, but only a few reaching the 
southwestern border of our country; the calyx with five 
almost equal teeth; the corolla short, the lower lip sac- 
shaped and abruptly turned back, the other four lobes 
nearly equal and flat; the stamens four, included in the 
sac of the lower lobe. 
A shrub, from three to five feet high, 
Hyptis L : 
= pie aE aceon with very pale, roundish, woody stems 
Purple and branches and small, very pale gray 
Spring leaves, thickish and soft, covered with 
Arizona 
white woolly down. The little fragrant, 
bluish-purple flowers, with white woolly calyxes, are 
crowded in close clusters about an inch long. Only a few 
flowers are out at one time and they are too small to be 
pretty, but the effect of the shrub as a whole is rather 
conspicuous and attractive, on account of its delicate 
coloring, the lilac of the flower-clusters harmonizing with 
the gray foliage, which gives out a very strong smell of 
sage when crushed. This grows among the rocks above the 
Desert Laboratory at Tucson and in similar places, bloom- 
ing in early spring and much visited by bees. 
442 


