Flora of South Fork of Kings River. 25 



LAURACE/E. Laurel Family. 



Umbellularia Californica Nutt- California Laurel or 

 Bay, Spice-wood, This is rare in the region and was seen form- 

 ing a shrub in the vicinity of Converse Basin, The shrub was 

 without flowers or fruit, but easily distinguished by the aromatic 

 foliage, 



RANUNCULACEiC Buttercup Family, 



KEV TO THE GEPJERA. 



Flowers dioecious in panicles; sepals 4-7, greenish ; petals none ; 



akenes in a head terminated by long, naked styles. 



Thalictrum, Meadow Rue, 



Sepals 5 ; petals 3-15, each with a honey gland at base, generally 



yellow Ranunculus, Buttercup. 



Sepals 5, petal-like, similar; petals 5, each with a long, hollow 



spur projecting below the sepals. Aquilegia, Columbine, 



Sepals 5, petal-like, the upper one prolonged backwards at the 

 base into a spur; petals 4, two running into the calyx-spur, 

 the others partly covering the pistils and stamens. 



Delphinium, Larkspur. 



Flowers small, white, in a corymb which lengthens into a raceme 

 and terminates the stem; fruit of red or white berries on 

 spreading pedicels. . . • . Actsea, Baneberry. 



Thalictrum sparsiflorum Turcz. Perennial, tall, 1-3 ft., 

 smooth and glaucous, leafy. Leaves twice or thrice-palmately- 

 compound, with the leaflets on short petioles, roundish and lobed. 

 On the male plant the stamens form the most conspicuous part of 

 the flower. East Lake. 



Ranunculus alismaefolius alismellus Gray. Stems low and 

 slender, 6 in. high, weak, smooth, perennial, from creeping root- 

 stocks. Lower leaves simple, elliptical-lanceolate, on long peti- 

 oles, upper leaves sessile. Flowers small, X~/^ ^°* ^"^ diameter, 

 1-2 at the ends of the stems. Akenes rather thick in a globular 

 "head, tipped with a short style. This grows in the wet meadows. 

 Collected at Summit Meadow. 



Ranunculus oxynotus Gray. Stems low, tufted, smooth, 2-3 

 in. high ; root-leaves on long petioles, with broad, orbicular, 

 crenately-lobed blades, an inch or less across ; stem-leaves deeply 

 3-5-lobed, on short, broad petioles. Flowers solitary at the ends 

 of the stems, inch or more in diameter. Sepals broad, orbicular, 

 clothed with long, brown hairs. Petals yellow, orbicular. This 

 is an Alpine species and was collected by Miss Catherine E. Wil- 



