[Sidenote: =Pretty Puccoon=
_Lithospérmum angustifòlium_
=Yellow
Spring
West, etc.=]
These are pretty flowers, but have a disagreeable smell. They are
perennials, with a deep root and hairy or downy, branching stems, from
six inches to two feet high, and hairy or downy leaves, which are
rather grayish green. The flowers are in terminal leafy clusters and
are of two sorts. The corollas of the earlier ones are very pretty,
clear bright yellow, sometimes nearly an inch and a half long, with
toothed lobes, which are charmingly ruffled at the edges, and with
crests in the throat, but the later flowers are small, pale, and
inconspicuous. This grows in dry places, especially on the prairies,
and is very widely distributed in the western and west central states.
[Sidenote: =Gromwell=
_Lithospérmum multiflòrum_
=Yellow
Summer
Ariz., Utah, etc.=]
This has a rough, hairy stem, about a foot tall, and dull green, rough,
hairy leaves, with bristles along the edges. The yellow flowers are
half an inch long and form rather pretty coiled clusters. This grows in
open woods at the Grand Canyon, and is found as far east as New Mexico
and Colorado.
There are a good many kinds of Amsinckia, natives of the western
part of our country and of Mexico and South America. They are rather
difficult to distinguish, rough, hairy or bristly, annual herbs,
the bristles usually from a raised base, and with yellow flowers,
in curved, rather showy, clusters. The corolla is more or less
salver-form, without crests, but with folds; the stamens and pistil not
protruding, the stigma two-lobed. In order to insure cross pollination
by insects, in some kinds the flowers are of two types, as concerns the
insertion of the stamens on the corolla and the length of the style.
Several of these plants are valuable in Arizona for early spring stock
feed, and the leaves of young plants are eaten by the Pima Indians for
greens and salads.
[Illustration: Pretty Puccoon--Lithospermum angustifolium.