Fleshy Porterella

Porterella carnosula (II. & A.) Torr. Rep. U. S Geol. vSurv. Terr. 5: 488. 1872.
Ij>belia carntisula H. & A. Bot. Beech. Voy. 362. 1838.
/.aurenlia carnosula Bcnth.; A. Gray, Bot. Calif. 1: 444. 1876.
I'orUrella ezimia A. Nelson, Bull. Torrey Club 27: 270. 1900. (Nelson 6541. Rocky Ml. herb.!).
I.aurentia eximia A. Nelson in Coult. & Nels. Man. 475. 1909.
Stems erect, simple or with few lateral branches, rarely difTiusc and bushy, somewhat fleshy, very slender or sloutish, the maximum diameter at base about 4 mm.; entire plant smooth and glabrous, green, fcw-32 cm. high, occasionally with mature fruit when no more than 1.5 cm. high; cauline leaves fcw-20, soft and lax, early deciduous and often not persistent
• McVaugh 62X2, from Add, Lake County, Oregon. until flowering time, usually narrower than the flower-bracts, the blades sessile, entire or rarely sinuate in luxttfiant specimens, linear-subulate or rarely lanceolate, 1-2 (4) mm. wide, (4) 10-20 (30) mm. long, the tip acute to attenuate or almost capUlary; roots slender, fibrous; stem, in wet places, continued downward as an erect rootstock with roots at several nodes, plainly corky-parenchymatous below; inflorescence 6-20 cm. long (correspondingly less in dwarfed plants), loosely 1-15(25-) flowered; pedicels ebracteolate, spreading-ascending, slender (maximum diameter about 0.5 mm.), 5-20 (35) mm. long in fruit, expanded gradually into the base of the capsule, straight or arcuate; flower-bracts linear to ovate, similar to the foliage leaves but usually broader and often longer than these, 1-4 mm. wide by 4-18 (27) mm. long, mostly 2.5-6 times as long as wide; flower (9) 13-18 (20) mm. long, including hypanthium, with an odor said to resemble that of the cultivated heliotrope; corolla strongly zygomorphic, blue (rarely all white), with yellow or whitish eye and two folds at base of lower lip, the tube linear or slightly enlarged distally, its long axis slightly oblique to that of the hjTJanthium, (3.5) 4.5-6 mm. long, the two upper lobes erect, elliptic, 1.0-2.5 mm. wide, 3.55.5 mm. long, the lobes of the lower lip elliptic or obovate, apiculate, 2-6 mm. wide, 4.5-9 mm. long; filaments 3-6 (7) mm. long, coherent their whole length into a tube, free from the corolla; anther-tube 1.5-2.6 mm. long, gray, all five anthers minutely white-tufted at tip, the two shorter ones plainly so, and with short hornlike processes in addition; h>-panthium in anthesis narrowly obconic or turbinate, in fruit becoming turbinate or cylindric, long-acute and usually slightly oblique at base, (1.5) 2-3 mm. in diameter; ovary inferior or essentially so; placentation axile; capsule opening by apical loculicidal valves, (5) 7-10 (16) mm. long, wholly inferior or with 1-2 mm. of the tip not adherent to the hypanthium; calyx-lobes linear, varying to narrowly triangular or elliptic, entire, rounded or subacute at tip, about 1 mm. wide (rarely as much as 2.5 mm.), 3-8 (II) mm. long; seeds fusiform, light brown with minutely darkapiculate tips, slightly lustrous, about 1 ram. long.
Type locality: "Blackfoot River, Snake Country" (southeastern Idaho), Tobnie (NY!). Distribution: Northwestern Wyoming to southeastern Oregon, south in the mountains to northern Utah, Coconino County, Arizona, northern Nevada, and Tulare County, California.