8U"N FLOW ER FAMILY. 



519 



Salt marshes about San Francisco and Suisun Bays; beaches along 

 the California coast. Summer and autumn. 



37. LASTHENIA Caes. 



Glabrous slightly succulent annuals. Leaves opposite, entire, 

 sessile and more or less connate at base. Heads on slender peduncles. 

 Flowers yellow, with 6 to 15 rays. Bracts of the involucre more or 

 less united into a hemispherical or campanulate toothed cup. Recep- 

 tacle conical or subulate, covered with projecting points which bear 

 the linear or linear-oblong flattened achenes. Pappus of 5 to 10 

 palese or none. (Named for a Greek girl who attended the lectures 

 of Plato in the garb of a man.) 



Pappus none; rays conspicuous. 

 Bracts united only below the middle; tube of corolla short-hirsutulous . . 



1. L. conjugen.*. 



Bracts united above the middle; tube of corolla nearly glabrous 



2. L. glabrata. 



Pappus of 5 to 10 palere, 2 or 3 awn-pointed; rays very inconspicuous; bracts 

 united above the middle 3. L. glabtrrima. 



1. L. conjugens Greene. Succulent or sometimes slender, 5 to 12 

 in. high, pubescent with short scattered hairs; leaves narrowly linear, 

 with linear segments, or merely toothed, or the lowest entire; invo- 

 lucral bracts united only toward the base; corolla-tube usually 

 hirsutulous; achenes polished, less than 1 line long. 



Subsaline fields: near Antioch; Newark, etc. Apr. 



2. L. glabrata Lindl. Usually branching above the base. 11 to 

 16 in. high; leaves linear and entire or sometimes the upper pair 

 broadly lanceolate and toothed, conspicuously connate and sheath- 

 like at base; peduncles elongated, erect; involucres broadly hemi- 

 spherical; ligules about 5 lines long, the entire head f to 1 in. wide. 



Borders of salt marshes. 



Var. Californica (L. Californica DC). Leaves less or scarcely 

 at all connate; peduncles corymbose. — Plains and low hills. May. 



L. chrysaxtha Greene has the obovate-oval compressed achenes 

 surrounded by a border of short closely packed clavate hairs. — Upper 

 San Joaquin Valley. 



3. L. glaberrima DC. Stems ascending, simple, 5 to 14 in. long; 

 leaves linear, entire; heads on short peduncles, nodding in the bud, 

 about 3 lines broad, seemingly rayless, the rays very small and incon- 

 spicuous; involucre with about 15 short teeth; corollas all shorter 

 than their achenes; achenes minutely puberulent; pappus of 5 to 10 

 rigid palea?, 2 or 3 of them subulate-pointed or short-awned, the 

 others erose or laciniate; achenes with short stiff hairs. 



Half-aquatic in winter pools or in wet fields: near the coast and 

 eastward to Alvarado and Mt. Diablo. May-June. 



38. B^ERIA F. & M. Gold Fields. 

 Low and mostly slender annuals (B. macrantha is perennial). 

 Herbage commonly pubescent but never hoary. Leaves opposite, 



