Pentstemon Menziesii, var. Newberryi, Gray. Figwort Family.

Stems.—Six inches to a foot high; woody at base. Leaves.—Ovate, obovate, or oblong; an inch or less long; leathery. Peduncles.—Usually one-flowered, forming a short, glandular-pubescent raceme. Corolla.—Bright rose-pink; an inch long. Anthers.—White-woolly; with divergent cells. (See Pentstemon.) Hab.—The High Sierras of Central California.

This charming Pentstemon is one of the most gracious flowers to be found in the Sierras in late summer. Upon banks overhanging the streams, or growing at great heights under the open sky, it makes many a rock-shelf gay with its brilliant pink blossoms.

We wonder how it can possibly subsist upon the hard, glittering granite; but there the mystery of its life continues from day to day, and there it cheerfully produces its masses of bright flowers, which gladden the weary climber to these snowy heights.

This species of Pentstemon is well marked by its white-woolly anthers, which almost fill the throat. Northward it passes into the typical P. Menziesii, which has flowers from violet-blue to pink-purple.

[SIERRA PRIMROSE—Primula suffrutescens.]

LESSINGIA.

Lessingia leptoclada, Gray. Composite Family.

Finely white-woolly. Stems.—From a few inches to two feet high, with numerous, almost filiform branchlets, bearing few or solitary heads of pink or white flowers. Lower leaves.—Spatulate; sparingly toothed; withering early. Upper leaves.—Lanceolate, or linear and entire; sessile; uppermost diminished into remote, subulate bracts. Heads.—Five- to twenty-flowered. Of tubular disk-flowers only. Outer flowers much larger. Involucre.—Silky hairy; broadly campanulate; with imbricated, appressed bracts. Hab.—Widespread.