[Sidenote: =Saccato Gordo, Fiddle-neck, Buckthorn Weed=
_Amsínckia inlermèdia_
=Yellow
Spring, summer
West=]
This has bright flowers, but the foliage is dreadfully harsh. The stem
is from one to three feet tall, often widely branching, with white
bristles scattered over it, and the leaves are dull green and bristly.
The flowers are pretty, about half an inch long, with narrow sepals
and bright orange corollas, with five bright red spots between the
lobes. The nutlets are roughened with short, hard points. These plants
are very common and sometimes form rank thickets in fields and waste
places. They are very abundant in southern Arizona and are valued as a
grazing plant for stock and are therefore known as Saccato Gordo, which
means "fat grass."
There are many kinds of Cryptanthe, most of them western and difficult
to distinguish. They are slender, hairy plants, with small flowers,
which are usually white, in coiled clusters; the calyx bristly; the
corolla funnel-form, usually with five crests closing the throat; the
nutlets never wrinkled. These plants resemble white Forget-me-nots and
are sometimes so called. The Greek name means "hidden flower," perhaps
because of the minute flowers of some kinds.
[Sidenote: =Nievitas=
_Cryptánthe intermèdia_
=White
Spring
Cal., Ariz.=]
A rather attractive little plant, but inconspicuous except when it
grows in patches, when it powders the fields with white, like a
light fall of snow, and suggests the pretty Spanish name, which is a
diminutive of "nieve," or snow. The slender, roughish stem is about ten
inches tall, the light green leaves are hairy, with fine bristles along
the edges, and the pretty little flowers are white, about a quarter
of an inch across, with yellow crests in the throat. Popcorn Flower,
_Plagiobòthrys nothofúlvus_, of the Northwest, is also called Nievitas,
as it often whitens the ground with its small, fragrant, white flowers,
which are very much like the last.
[Illustration: Nievitas--Cryptanthe intermedia.