FLOWERING PLANTS AND FERNS OF ARIZONA 695 



August. Kansas and Arkansas to Nevada and Arizona, south to 

 northern Mexico. 



Flowers greenish yellow and maroon, slightly fragrant. Abandon- 

 ment of grazing grounds for sheep because of the prevalence of this 

 plant has been reported. 



6. METASTELMA 



Stems twining (often around one another), slightly woody at base; 

 leaf blades narrow, rather thick; flowers small, solitary or in few- 

 flowered lateral umbels; corolla 5-parted, white-pubescent inside, the 

 segments of the crown not hooded, narrow, inserted at base of the 

 column, surpassing the stigma; pods slender, long-acuminate. 



1. Metastelma arizonicum A. Gray, Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci. Proc. 



19: 85. 1883. 



Pinal, Maricopa, and Pima Counties, 1,500 to 3,500 feet, dry rocky 

 slopes, flowering almost throughout the year, type from near Tucson 

 (Pringle). Known only from southern Arizona. 



7. BASISTELMA 



Plant very similar to Metastelma arizonicum except in the characters 

 given in the key to genera. 



*1. Basistelma angustifolium (Torr.) Bartlett, Amer. Acad. Arts and 

 Sci. Proc. 44: 631. 1909. 



Metastelma (?) angustijolia Torr., U. S. and Me:.. Bound. Bot. 



159. 1859. 

 Melinia angustifolia A. Gray, Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci. Proc. 



12: 73. 1877. 



Not known definitely to occur in Arizona, but the type (Wright 

 1677) was collected at Santa Cruz, Sonora, only a few miles south of 

 the Arizona border. 



8. FUNASTRUM 



Stems twining; leaves opposite, with linear to cordate-ovate or 

 sagittate blades; flowers numerous in lateral umbels; corolla cam- 

 panulate-rotate, deeply lobed, the lobes twisted, the crown double; 

 pods fusiform, attenuate-acuminate, smooth or warty. 



The whitish, yellowish, or purplish flowers are fragrant. It is 

 reported that the Papago Indians ate the pods, raw or cooked. 



Key to the species 



1. Peduncles much snorter than the leaves; leaf blades with usually crisped 

 margins, thickish, narrowly to broadly lanceolate, hastate or sagittate at 

 base; herbage copiously cinereous-puberulent; pods 9 to 16 cm. long, 1 to 

 2 cm. wide where widest, long-acuminate at apex, acute or short-attenuate 



at base, smooth 1. F. crispum. 



1. Peduncles equaling or surpassing the leaves; leaf blades not crisped; pods not 

 more than 10 cm. long (2). 

 2. Leaf blades ovate-lanceolate to broadly ovate, cuspidate-acuminate at apex 

 (often abruptly so), cordate or sagittate at base (usually deeply so), 

 thin; flowers white or whitish; pods 1 to 1.5 cm. wide where widest, 

 rounded to attenuate at base, finely ridged; herbage sparsely short- 

 pubescent or glabrate 2. F. CYNANCHOIDES. 



