RANUNCULACEAE. 163 



206. ISOPYRUM. 



Low glabrous perennials with 1-3 ternately compound leaves, 

 their primary divisions long-petiolulate; flowers white; sepals 

 5 or 6, broad, widely spreading; petals none (in ours); follicles 

 2-20, sessile, rarely short stipitate; ovules and seeds few (in ours). 



Isopyrum hallii Gray. Stems erect, 30-80 cm. high; leaflets 2-3 cm. long, 

 cuneate-obovate, incisely 3-lobed; flowers in leafy-bracted umbel-like cymes; 

 sepals obovate; stamens numerous, as long as the sepals, the filaments clavate; 

 follicles 3-5, ovate, turgid, sharp-beaked; seeds rugulose. 



In woods along mountain streams, western Oregon, rare. 



207. COPTIS. GOLDTHREAD. 



Low glabrous perennials with slender rootstocks; leaves all 

 radical, ternately compound; flowers on scapes, solitary, or in 

 few-flowered umbels; sepals 5-7, petal-like; petals 5-6, small, 

 linear, hood-shaped; stamens numerous; pistils 3-7, on slender 

 stalks, in fruit forming a cluster of divergent follicles. 



Coptis laciniata Gray. Leaves trifoliolate, the ovate leaflets firm, shiny, 

 3-cleft or parted and the divisions incisely dentate; sepals whitish, linear, 

 8-10 mm long; petals filiform with a broader concave nectary below the middle; 

 follicles longer than their stalk-like bases. 



In mountain woods, Skamania County, Washington to northern Cali- 

 fornia. C. trifoliata (L.) Salisb. has been reported to occur near Snohomish, 

 Washington, but no specimens have been seen from farther south than Mount 

 Mark, Vancouver Island, Macoun. The species is readily distinguished by the 

 three undivided leaflets, oval sepals, and clavate petals. 



Family 43. BERBERIDACEAE. BARBERRY FAMILY. 



Shrubs or herbs; leaves alternate, mostly compound or divided, 

 with stipules or dilated bases; flowers perfect, the bracts, sepals, 

 petals and stamens all distinct and hypogynous; sepals and petals 

 each usually in two rows of three; anthers opening by two valves 

 or lids hinged at the top; pistil single; style short or none; fruit 

 a berry or pod ; seeds few or several ; endosperm present. 



Shrubs; leaves evergreen, pinnate, spiny. 208. BERBERIS, 163. 

 Herbs; leaves deciduous, not pinnate nor spiny. 



Leaves ternately compound; flowers in panicles. 209. VANCOUVERIA, 164. 



Leaves 3-parted; flowers in spikes. 210. ACHLYS, 164. 



208. BERBERIS. 



Shrubs with yellow wood ; leaves alternate, simple or compound, 

 often spiny, evergreen (in ours) ; flowers yellow, in clustered 

 racemes; bractlets 2-6; sepals 6, petal-like; petals 6, in two rows, 

 each with two basal glands; stamens 6, short; stigma peltate; 

 fruit a berry. 



Leaflets palmately nerved. B. nervosa. 



Leaflets pinnately nerved. B. aquifolium. 



