
MINT FAMILY. Labiatae. 
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ones toothless. It grows in open woods in the Coast 
Ranges and Sierra Nevada mountains. S. tuberdsa is from 
three to five inches high, with tuberous rootstocks; the 
leaves more or less oval, downy, thin in texture, with a 
few teeth, the lower ones purplish on the under side, with 
long leaf-stalks, the flowers dark blue, about three-quarters 
of an inch long, each pair, instead of standing out at 
opposite sides of the stem, generally turn sociably together, 
first to one side and then to the other. This blooms in 
spring and grows in the Coast Ranges of California and 
_ Oregon. 
Biodidec bask This is the only kind, a very curious 
eae spiny desert shrub, about three feet high, 
Mexicana varying a great deal in general appearance 
sae andwhite in different situations. The stems and 
pring 2 ; : 
Southwest foliage are gray-green and imperceptibly 
downy and the flowers are over three- 
quarters of an inch long, with a corolla which is hairy 
outside and has a lilac and white upper lip and a dark 
blue lower one. The calyxes become inflated and form 
very curious papery globes, over half an inch in diameter, 
very pale in color, tinged with yellow, pink, or lilac, and 
extremely conspicuous. In the desert around Needles, 
in California, the general form of the shrub is very loose 
and straggling, with slender twisting branches and small, 
pale gray-green leaves, both flowers and leaves very 
scanty and far apart, so that the bunches of bladder-like 
pods are exceedingly conspicuous. In the Mohave Desert 
it becomes a remarkably dense shrub, a mass of dry- 
looking, criss-cross, tangled branches, spiky twigs, and 
dull green leaves, speckled all over with the dark blue and 
white flowers and the twigs crowded with pods. Some- 
times the flowers are magenta instead of blue, but are all 
alike on one bush. The stems are not square, as in most 
Mints. The drawing is of a plant at Needles. 
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