EOSACE.j:. 55 



1. P. raiiiosissimuin, Nutt. iu T. & G. Fl. i. 474 (1840). Only 2— 3 ft. 

 high, but the long recurved and more or less tortuous slender branches 

 spreading widely : leaves narrowly oblanceolate, short-petioled, acute, 

 sparingly denticulate, 1 — 2 in. long : fl. rose-color, % in. broad ; petals 

 strongly concave : pome globose, 5 — 7 lines in diameter, watery and 

 acidulous, with the flavor of apples. — This peculiar wild apjjle of our 

 western desert.'*, entering California along the eastern base of the Sierra, 

 seems hardly distinct from 3IaJi(s ; though herbarium botanists misled 

 by a technicality of the carijellary structure have wished to reduce it to 

 Aiiielaachicr, to which it is not, in our judgment, at all closely allied; 

 although ,1. pallida, of similar habitat, resembles it in habit and in 

 foliage. 



Ordek IV. R S A C E /E . 



Jussieu, Genera Plantarum, 334 (1789), partly ; Endl. Gen. 1240 (1840). 

 Herbs or shrubs often prickly, with alternate frequently compound 

 leaves and mostly foliaceous commonly adnate stipules. Flowers perfect 

 or unisexual, solitary, cymose, corymbose, or paniculate. Calyx free from 

 the ovary, 4— 5-cleft, the segments valvate (rarely imbricate) in aestivation. 

 Petals perigynous, as many as the calyx-lobes and alternate with them, 

 or 0. Stamens 5— oo, perigynous (in Aruncus hypogynous). Pistils 

 1 — 00 ; ovary usually 1-celled and with 1 ovule, sometimes many-ovuled; 

 ovules pendulous or ascending. Styles as many as the ovaries, inserted 

 terminally or laterally, persistent or deciduous. Fruit an achene or an 

 aggregation of drupelets, sometimes follicular, dehiscent by the ventral 

 suture. Seeds with little or no albumen. — A large order, of the temperate 

 or boreal regions of the northern hemisphere chiefly ; furnishing some 

 choice fruits (raspberry, blackberry, strawberry) and flowers (rose, 

 spirsea, Kerria), and medicinal plants of astringent properties. 



Hints of the fienera. 



Unarmed shrubs ; 



Leaves simple, 



Pistils 3--5; fr. dry, dehiscent, 1— 2-valved, - - 1, 2, 6 

 " 1 — 5 ; " an achene, ------ 6—9 



" cc ; " fleshy (mass of drupelets), - - - 17 



Leaves minutely 2— 3-pinnately dissected, - - . . - - 4, 5 



" small, pinnately 5-foliolate, --------15 



Prickly shrubs, .--.----.-. ---17, 18 



Herbs ; leaves ample, 3-pinnate, ----------- 3 



" '■ palmately 3-nate or 5-nate, -------- 15 — 17 



" " unequally pinnate. 



Calyx prickly, 11, 12 



" unarmed, 10, 13—16 



1. XEILLIA, Lon (Nine-Baek). Shrubs unarmed with surculose 

 shreddy-barked stems and simple more or less lobed and toothed decidu- 



