FIG WORT FAMILY. 



411 



base; flowers blue with a small white center, 2\ to 3 lines broad; 

 calyx-lobes ovate or oblong, 1 to ]J lines long; upper and lateral 

 petals subequal, larger than the lower petal; capsule 4 lines broad, 

 with two strongly divergent lobes, appearing as if twin; seeds about 

 9 in each cell, oblong or roundish, wrinkled, with a fissure on one 

 side, 1 line long. 



Escaped from gardens: abundant in alfalfa fields near Newark, 

 Miss Crocker; Woodland, acc. to Brandegee. Apr. Another garden 

 annual, V. arvensis L., Corn Speedwell, is sometimes met with as 

 an escape: pedicels shorter than the flowers; corolla blue, smaller; 

 capsule notched at apex, the lobes not divergent. 



2. V. peregrina L. Neckweed. Annual, erect, 4 to 9 or 12 in. 

 high, simple or branched from the base; herbage finely puberulent; 

 leaves alternate or the lowest opposite, oblong, £ to 1 in. long, entire 

 or dentate, only the lowest petioled; flowers solitary in the axils of 

 the alternate leaves, sometimes in one of the axils of the opposite 

 leaves, appearing racemose above by the reduction of the upper leaves 

 to bracts; pedicels shorter than the small white flowers or obcordate 

 capsules. 



Common in low places in valley fields: Humboldt Co.; Ukiah; 

 Napa Valley; South Coast Ranges; plains of the Sacramento and San 

 Joaquin; Southern California. May. 



3. V. Americana Schwein. Brooklime. Glabrous perennial; 

 stems erect or ascending, 1 to 2 ft. long; leaves oblong-ovate, serrate. 

 1£ to 3 in. long, short-petioled, bearing peduncled racemes in their 

 axils; pedicels filiform, exceeding the linear-oblong bracts and much 

 longer than the rotund capsule; corolla blue. 



Springs and rivulets in the hills and mountains: Coast Ranges 

 (Howell Mountain, Berkeley, San Francisco, Pajaro Hills); Sierra 

 Nevada. June. 



17. CASTILLEI A Mutis. 

 Root-parasitic herbs or sometimes suflfrutescent plants. Leaves 

 alternate, sessile, entire or more commonly laciniate. Flowers dull 

 yellowish or greenish, in terminal spikes (rarely pediceled), the bracts 

 and calyx-lobes commonly more showy than the corolla. Calyx tubu- 

 lar, flattened laterally, cleft before and usually behind, the divisions 

 entire, emarginate or 2-cleft. Upper lip (galea) of the corolla long 

 and narrow, flattened laterally (or conduplicate) and enclosing the 

 style and the 4 unequal stamens. Lower lip very short, 3-lobed or 

 -toothed. Anther cells unequal, the outer versatile, the inner pendu- 

 lous. Capsule many -seeded. (D. Castillejo, Spanish botanist.) 



Annual; calyx about equally cleft before and behind, wholly green; corolla 

 straight, exserted from the calyx-tube and exposing the short scarlet 

 lower lip 1. C. spiralis. 



Perennials. 



Calyx much more deeply cleft before than behind; corolla falcate, the 

 galea well exserted from lower side of calyx and exposing the lower 

 lip 2. C. affinis. 



Calyx equally cleft before and behind; galea included or little exserted 

 (the lower lip never exposed). 



