Annual or perennial caulescent herbs with branched stems. Leaves alternate, commonly, pinnatifid or lyrate; buds drooping. Flowers perfect, white, red or purple, diurnal, in terminal spikes or racemes. Calyx-tube funnelform; calyx-segments narrow, deciduous, their tips mostly free in the bud. Petals 4, spreading. Stamens 8, the alternate ones longer; filaments filiform; anthers linear. Ovary elongated, 4-celled; stigma 4-cleft; ovules numerous on slender stalks, in many rows. Capsules club-shaped, 4-winged, sessile or stalked. Seeds numerous, not tuberculate. [In honor of Emanuel Hartmann, a resident of Louisiana.]

About 10 species, in North and South America. Type species: Hartmannia faux-gaura Spach.

1. Hartmannia Speciòsa (Nutt.) Small. Showy Primrose

Fig. 3057

Oe. speciosa Nutt Journ. Acad. Phil. 2:119. 1821. Hartmannia speciosa Small, Bull. Torr. Club 23: 181. 1896.

Erect, perennial, ascending or decumbent, more or less branched, 6'-3° high, puberulent or finely pubescent. Stem-leaves lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, sessile, or short-petioled, acutish, sinuate or pinnatifid, 2-3' long; basal leaves slender-petioled, oval or oval-lanceolate, repand or pinnatifid at the base; flowers white or pink, 1 1/2-3 1/2' broad, generally few, loosely spicate; petals broadly obovate, emarginate; calyx-lobes ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, spreading, the tube rather longer than the ovary; capsule club-shaped, strongly 4-ribbed, 4-winged, pubescent, 6"-9" long, on a short stout pedicel.

Prairies, Missouri and Kansas to Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and Mexico. May-July. Extensively natu--alized in Illinois, South Carolina and Georgia.