Mostly annual low herbs, with linear entire leaves, the lowest often opposite, and small flowers in terminal spikes or racemes. Pedicels thickened at the summit, persistent. Calyx 5-divided, persistent, the segments narrow. Corolla salverform, white, yellow in the throat. Stamens included. Ovary 4-divided; style short. Nutlets crustaceous, smooth, or rough, attached at their base or below the middle to the receptacle, the scar of attachment concave or raised. [Greek, different nuts.]

About 25 species, natives of western North America. Type species: Allocarya lithocarya (A. Gray) Greene.

1. Allocarya Scopulorum Greene. Mountain Allocarya

Fig. 3516

Eritrichium californicum var. subglochidiatum A. Gray, Bot. Cal. 1: 526. In part. 1876.

Allocarya scopulorum Greene, Pittonia 1: 16. 1887'.

Somewhat succulent, pubescent with scattered stiff appressed hairs, branched, the slender spreading branches 1'-8' long. Leaves 6"-18" long, 1"-1 1/2" wide, sessile or very short-petioled; flowers about 1" broad, distant, borne in most of the axils, very short-pedicelled; floral bracts similar to the leaves, but shorter; calyx segments linear-lanceolate; nutlets reticulate on the back, lightly grooved on the ventral side.

Western Nebraska to Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. June-Sept.