Antirrhinum Coulterianum, Benth. Figwort Family.
Stems.—Two to four feet high; smooth below. Leaves.—Linear to oval; distant. Tendril-shoots long and slender, produced mostly below the flowers. Flowers.—White or violet; in densely crowded villous-pubescent spikes, two to ten inches long. (Otherwise as A. vagans.) Hab.—Santa Barbara to San Diego.
The flowers of this pretty snapdragon are usually white, and the lower lip, with its great palate often dotted with dark color, takes up the major part of the blossom. They are sometimes violet, however, when they much resemble the flowers of the toad-flax, but are without their long spur.
A. Orcuttianum, Gray, is a similar species, but more slender, with fewer and smaller flowers, whose lower lip is not much larger than the upper, and whose flower-spikes are disposed to have the tortile branchlets in their midst. This is found near San Diego and southward.
HELIOTROPE.
Heliotropium Curassavicum, L. Borage Family.
Diffusely spreading; six to twelve inches high. Leaves.—Alternate; sessile; obovate to linear; an inch or two long; succulent; glaucous. Flowers.—Usually white, sometimes lavender; in dense, usually two-forked spikes. Calyx.—Five-parted. Corolla.—Salver-form; border five-lobed, with plaited sinuses; three lines across. Stamens.—Five. Anthers sessile. Ovary.—Of four seedlike nutlets. Stigma umbrella-like. Hab.—Widely distributed.
This, the only species of true heliotrope common within our borders, is widely distributed over the world. It affects the sand of the seashore or saline soils of the interior. It is in no way an attractive plant, as compared with our garden heliotrope, as its flowers have a washed-out look and are not at all fragrant, while its pale stems and foliage lack color and character.
Its leaves, which contain a mucilaginous juice, are dried and reduced to powder by the Spanish-Californians, who esteem them very highly as a cure for the wounds of men and animals. They blow the dry powder into the wound.