MINT FAM1 LY. 



463 



12. MICROMERIA Benth. 

 Trailing perennial herbs. Flowers small, white, solitary and pedi- 

 •celed in the axils. Calyx tubular, about equally 5-toothed and 

 striately 12 to 15-nerved. Corolla evidently bilabiate, the tube 

 straight, shorter than or somewhat exceeding the calyx. Stamens 4, 

 all anther-bearing, shorter than the corolla. Style beardless. (Greek 

 mikros, small, and meros, part, on account of the small size of the 

 flowers.) 



1. M. Chamissonis (Benth.) Greene. Yerka Biexa. Trail- 

 ing or creeping stems slender, 1 ft. or more long; herbage slightly 

 pubescent; leaves round-ovate, crenate, glandular-punctate, especially 

 on the under surface, 1 in. long or less, on petioles 2 to 3 lines long; 

 flowers about 4 lines long; calyx minutely hispidulous; corolla 

 exteriorly pubescent. — (M. Douglasii Benth.) 



Common in woods near the coast: Humboldt Co.: Marin Co.; 

 Berkeley; San Francisco; Belmont; Monterey Co. and southward to 

 Southern California. June. 



13. SPHACELE Benth. 



Ours a low shrub or merely suttrutescent plant. Flowers solitary 

 in the axils of the reduced upper leaves thus forming a leafy raceme. 

 Calyx campanulate, deeply and nearly equally 5-toothed. naked 

 within, about 10 to 15-nerved, reticulate-veiny, inflated and membra- 

 nous after flowering. Corolla large and rather showy, with 4 short 

 spreading lobes, the fifth and lowest lobe much longer and erect; 

 tube broad, a hair}' ring at base within. Stamens 4, somewhat 

 ascending; filaments naked; anthers somewhat approximate, the cells 

 diverging. (Sphakos, the name of the Greeks for Sage, the plants of 

 this genus having similar foliage.) 



1. S. calycina Benth. Pitcher Sage. Three or 4 ft. high, pubes- 

 cent or even somewhat woolly; leaves very veiny or scarcely retic- 

 ulated, broadly ovate to oblong-ovate, obtuse, dentate or serrated the 

 base entire and varying from cordate to acute, 2 to 4 in. long, the 

 lower on petioles £ in. long, the uppermost sessile; corolla white or 

 pink-tinted, over 1 in. long; calyx with triangular-lanceolate lobes, 

 in fruit ovoid-inflated, f to over 1 in. long; nutlets black, very 

 smooth, elliptical in outline, nearly 2 lines long. 



Hillsides and canons of the Coast Ranges: Vaca Mountains; Marin 

 Co.; Mt. Diablo; Belmont; Monterey, and southward to Southern 

 California. Butte Co., acc. to Bot. Cal. May-June. On the higher 

 ridges the leaves are small and very rugose. 



14. MONARDELLA Benth. 

 Annual or perennial herbs, for the most part pleasantly fragrant. 

 Flowers in heads; heads terminal on the branches or stems, subtended 

 by broad involucral bracts, which are often more or less colored. 

 Calyx tubular, narrow, 15-nerved, the 5 teeth equal or nearly so. 

 Corolla glabrous within, rose-purple, lavender or dull white; upper 



