12S HANDBOOK 14S, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



7. Seed-head clusters roundish- to flattish-topped (corym- 

 bose), to 4 inches across, at tips of erect, shiny, tan- 

 to brown-barked, low, often unbranched stems which 

 grew from buds on shallow, trailing, woody under- 

 ground stems; seed pods (follicles) splitting down from 

 top along inner groove; buds tiny (to % inch long) ; bud 

 scales several, overlapping; leaf scars indistinct, bor- 

 dered by torn edges of leafstalk base; bundle trace 

 single; buds, bud scales, leaf scars hard to see without 

 hand lens; stipules, stipule scars lacking; low shrubs 

 to 2 or .3 feet high, stems sometimes dying back to near 

 ground line; commonest spirea of middle altitudes; dry 

 hillsides, open woods; Cascades, Wallowa and Blue 

 Mts., e. Oreg., e. Wash. 



shinyleaf (or birchleaf) spirea (Spiraea lucida). 



7. Seed-head clusters elongate, narrow to broad, some- 

 times much-branched, nearly erect, ascending or droop- 

 ing, at twig or stem tips; bud scales 2 to several, about 

 equally sized, overlapping little if any, soon spreading, 

 sometimes falling, exposing tiny, densely hairy, un- 

 developed leaves; bundle traces 3 (sometimes appear- 

 ing fused into 1 in ceanothus). 



8. Seed pods (achenes) tiny, long-white-hairy, beaked, 

 5 for each flower, on a disk, opposite the 5 persistent 



Twig enlarged to show 

 buds, bud scales, leaf 

 scars, and stipule scars 



Mallow ninebark 



F-404083 



