LAURACEAE. 143 



dentate. Flowers racemose, yellow. Sepals 6-9, peta- 

 lold, bracted, each with 2 glands at base. Petals 6, 

 imbricated in 2 series. Stamens 6, irritable, closing 

 around the stigma when touched on the inner face near 

 the base. Pistil 1 ; stigma peltate. Berry 1-few-seeded. 



1. O. dictyota (Jepson.) Abrams. Shrub 4-12 dm. high, rather 

 sparsely leafy ; leaflets 5-7 , glaucescent on the upper surface, somewhat 

 paler beneath and prominently reticulate-veiny, strongly undulate, the 

 margins spinose-dentate, the teeth few and rather remote; racemes 

 terminal, clustered, 2-5 cm. long; berries blue-black, with bloom. 

 {Berheris dictyota Jepson.) 



Occasional on dry ridges. Near Glendale, Davidson; Switzer's 

 trail, San Gabriel Mountains, F. Grinnell. 



2. O. nevinii (Gray.) Abrams. Shrub 2-3 m. high; leaflets pale, 

 lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, often acuminate, teeth not remote, 

 spinulose-serrate, 1-2.5 cm. long; racemes loosely 5-7-flowered, 

 equaling or surpassing the leaves; pedicels slender. {Berheris nevinii 

 Gray.) 



Fernando, where it was first collected by Nevin. 



Family 36. LAURACEAE. Laurel Family. 



Aromatic trees or shrubs with alternate entire minutely 

 punctate exstipulate leaves and perfect or unisexual 

 yellow or greenish flowers, in panicles or racemes. 

 Calyx 4-6-parted, segments imbricated in 2 series. 

 Corolla none. Stamens in 3-4 series, some of them often 

 imperfect; anthers 2-4-celled, opening by valves. Ovary 

 superior, free from the calyx, 1-celled; ovule solitary, 

 anatropous, pendulose; style 1; stigma 1. Fruit a 1- 

 seeded drupe. 



1. UMBELLULARIA Nutt. California Laurel or Bay Tree. 



Trees with thick evergreen petioled leaves and perfect 

 flowers, borne in terminal or axillary pedunculate umbels, 

 which are included before expansion in an involucre 

 consisting of 4 broad deciduous bracts. Calyx 6-parted, 

 deciduous. Stamens 9, inserted on the throat in 3 rows, 

 the 3 inner with a fleshy 2-lobed stipitate gland at the 

 base, alternating with 3 ligulate staminodia; anthers 4, 

 4-valved, the outer introrse, the inner extrorse. The 

 stigma dilated, somewhat lobed. Drupe subglobose or 

 ovoid, subtended by the thickened base of the calyx. 



