10 



SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 



You may recognize in the picture on this page the 

 likeness of one of our most troublesome native 

 weeds. The yellow flowers are often smaller than 

 here represented, and the upper leaves are generally 

 narrower. Indeed, this plant, along with many 

 others of this coast, is provokingly variable in ita 

 appearance. Pull off a corolla, and a single un- 

 divided style is uncovered. Follow this down into 

 the calyx, and you discover that it grows from be- 

 tween four seed -like ovaries. These are more easily 

 seen in an older calyx, as shown at a. Now it hap- 

 pens that this peculiar compound ovary, together 

 with the coiled inflorescence, belongs only to plants 

 of the order BoiTaginaceee. A coiled inflorescence 

 and a pistil with a divided style is found only in 

 plants of the order Hydrophyllaceje. Any plant 

 with a four-parted ovary and regular flox^ers may 

 be sought under the former order. Creeping Helio- 

 trope or Blue Weed {Heliotroipium Curassavicum) is 

 a Borraginaceous plant with ovaries merely 4-lobed. 

 The Mint Family has fruit similar to that of the 

 Borrages (see d and e in the figui-e on p. 11), but the 

 flowers are irregular. The Verbenas are distin- 

 Amsinckialycopsoides. a. Calyx spread g^i^hea f^.Q^,, the Mints by nearly regular flowers 

 apart to Bhow the ripe akenes. , ,■,■,■, ■, ■ ^ \ . 7-, • , 



and a 4-lobed ovary, which does not split into parts 



until quite ripe. (See a in the left-hand figure on page 11.) 



The plant figured at the top of the opposite page is common in open woods throughout 

 the Coast Ranges and the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. Tlie flowers are white, tinged 

 with purple. Each of the tliree incurved petals is covered with hairs on the inner side, 

 and is marked near the base by a depression which is seen upon the outside as a project- 

 ing boss. This is called a gland, and is one of the characteristic marks of the genus. 

 Since the three-cornered ovary is superior, we at once refer the plant to the order 

 Liliacese, where we again read the characters given in each of the three series. The 

 stamens in this plant are hypogynous, not perigynous, and the anthers are extrorse. 

 Therefore, Series I is passed. Series III is excluded, because the anthers in this plant 

 are not versatile. Evidently the name is to be sought under Series II, which is divided 

 into three sections. You now see why you should have dug up one of the plants. Hov/- 

 ever, you can decide the genus without knowing that the plant is bulbous. It can not 

 belong to § 3, since one of the two genera under it has umljcllate flowers, and the other 

 solitary flowers. In § 2, the perianth segments are similar. Our plant then must be sought 

 in § 1, and under the head "* * Perianth segments unlike," which leads to Calochortus,^ 



