[Illustration COLLINSIA--_Collinsia bicolor_.]
_A. stachyoides_ frequently forms dense thickets over vast reaches of mountain-side, and when in full bloom is very noticeable. Its specific name is a happy one, denoting its resemblance to the _Stachys_, or hedge-nettle. But its pointed leaves, shrubby habit, and rank odor, together with its more numerous flower-whorls, proclaim its separate identity.
_A. nivea_, Benth., found from Santa Barbara to San Diego, has larger spikes of rich, warm lilac flowers. Nothing could be more charming than the soft lavender billows of it undulating over slope after slope of wild mountain-side.
_Cilia Chamissonis_, Greene. Phlox or Polemonium Family.
_Stems._--About a foot high. _Leaves._--Alternate; dissected into linear segments. _Flowers._--In capitate clusters an inch and a half across; deep blue. _Calyx._--Five-toothed. _Corolla._--Four lines long; with five obtuse lobes. _Stamens._--Exserted. Anthers nearly white. (See _Gilia_.) _Hab._--The Coast of Central California.
This pretty _Gilia_ is quite common about San Francisco in springtime, and often makes masses of bright deep blue over the fields.
_G. capitata_, Dougl., is a closely allied species, found in the Coast Ranges from Central California northward. This is in every way a more delicate plant. Its stems are taller and more slender; its flower-heads are less than an inch across, and composed of very small light-blue flowers, with feathery, exserted stamens.
_G. achilleæfolia_, Benth., is a beautiful form, closely related to both the above, but quite variable in habit. Its flowers are light lavender-blue, six lines or so long, and are borne in larger clusters, often two inches across, on long, naked peduncles. At a little distance these blossoms somewhat resemble the clusters of _Brodiæa capitata_.
[Illustration BLUE GILIA--_Gilia Chamissonis_.]
_Stems._--Six inches to two feet high. _Leaves._--Wrinkly; one to several inches long. _Flowers._--Blue; in interrupted whorls. _Whorls._--Twelve to eighteen lines in diameter; subtended by numerous, ovate-acuminate bracts. _Calyx._--Bilabiate; upper lip arching, and tipped with two short bristles; lower, of two awn-like teeth. _Corolla._--Three or four lines long; bilabiate. Upper lip erect; notched or two-lobed. Lower deflexed; with three lobes, the central much larger. _Stamens._--Two. Filaments two; short; apparently forked--_i.e._ bearing on their summit a cross-bar having on one end a perfect anther-cell and on the other a dwarfed or rudimentary one. _Ovary._--Of four seedlike nutlets. Style slender. _Hab._--Throughout the State, specially southward.