PHILADELPHE^. 203 



of the Sierra everywhere ; formerly confused with R. Menziesii, from 

 which it is very distinct. Owing to its inland habitat it was not obtained 

 by the early explorers of the coast. Its large elongated dark red flowers, 

 conspicuous cucullate bracts, and very large fruits, mark it as an excel- 

 lent species, notwithstanding its great variability in respect to pubescence ; 

 for while some specimens are almost hoary, even to the calyx, others are 

 wholly glabrous. But the branches appear to be always destitute of the 

 bristly hairs or soft prickles which, in other allied species are almost 

 invariably present. The large well-flavored reddish fruits are rarely 

 almost free from the prickles ; while in the more tomentulose forms the 

 prickles themselves, as well as the surface of the fruit, are sparsely 

 villous-hairy. In the shrub of our southern foothill regions, the bracts 

 appear to be persistent, the pedicels elongating after flowering, 

 -t— -i- Fl. 4-inerous; calyx-lohes erect. — Genus Egbsgnia, Berlandier. 



22. R. speciosnm, Pursh, Fl. ii. 732 (1814) ; Bot. Eeg. t. 1557 : R. 

 stamineum, Smith, Eees Cycl. (1815) : R. fuchsioides, Berl. Mem. Soc. 

 Genev. (1828). Robsonia speciosa, Spach, Phaner. vi. 181 (1838). Shrub 

 6 — 10 ft. high, with long leafy red-bristly branches : subaxillary spines 

 3, united at base : leaves subcoriaceous, dark green, very smooth and 

 shining above, rounded and 3-lobed ; lobes short, crenately-toothed : 

 peduncles pendulous, 2 — 5-flowered : fl. bright red, often 2 in. long from 

 the base of the ovary to the tips of the long-exserted stamens ; calyx 

 cylindraceous, the 4 (rarely 5) lobes erect ; anthers oval, small ; ovary 

 bristly : berry small, rather dry, densely prickly. — The most beautiful 

 species of the genus, and the only one in our flora which is evergreen ; 

 frequent along the seaboard from Monterey southward. Mar. — May. 



Oedeb XXIX. PHILADELPHE/E. 



Don ; Edinb. Phil. Journ. 133 (1826). Part of Myrlacex, Juss. (1789). 



Shrubs or undershrubs, with opposite exstipulate toothed leaves, and 

 cymose-paniculate or axillary and solitary white flowers. Calyx with 

 turbinate tube adherent to the ovary ; the 4— 6-parted limb valvate in the 

 bud. Petals as many as the calyx-lobes, alternate with them, convolute 

 or imbricate in bud. Stamens 8 — oo in 1 or 2 series. Styles and stigmas 

 several, the former, and sometimes the latter more or less coalescent. 

 Fruit capsular, 4 — 10-celled, loculicidally or septicidally dehiscent. Seeds 

 numerous, on axial placentae, mostly pendulous, elongated ; testa thin ; 

 albumen fleshy. 



1. PHILIDELPHUS, Ruppius (Mook-Oeange. Syringo). Leaves 

 ovate or oblong, short-petioled. Flowers 4-merous (sometimes terminal 

 one 5-merous), more or less clustered terminally and in the upijer axils. 



