Spraguea. PORTULACACE^. 277 



bracts (or short leaves with broad scarious bases) opposite the foliar leaves : petals very 



variable, sometimes apparently absent : seeds very smooth and shinino-. Proc. Am. Acad. 



xviii. 191 ; Howell, 1. c. Ciaytonia dicliotoma, Gray, 1. c. 284, in part; Macoun Cat. Canad. 

 PI. i. 83. — Oregon, Willamette Valley, Howell, Columbia Co., Suksdorf; vicinity of Vic- 

 toria, Brit. Columbia, Macoun, no. 34. 



***** Leafy-stemmed opposite-leaved species (annual or nearly so) : petals small 

 white, unequal, connate at the base into a gamopetalous corolla, which is split down one 

 side. — Montia proper. , 



M.* fontana, L. Small and ascending or procumbent annual, or subperennial by rooting 

 from the nodes, especially in water or very wet places, moderately succulent : stems an inch 

 to a span or when floating even a foot long : leaves opposite, from obovate- to linear-spatu- 

 late, from a tenth to half an inch long including the petiole-like base, in uppermost pairs one 

 often reduced to a scarious vestige or bract : inflorescence terminal or lateral^ loosely few- 

 several-flowered : calyx and globose capsule liarely a line long : corolla white, little surpas- 

 sing the calyx. — Spec, i. 87; PL Dan. t. 131, 1926. Two forms as to seeds, not clearly 

 distinguishable otherwise, viz.: 1. Seeds not shining, thickly muriculate in close lines: 

 M. minor, Gmel. Fl. Bad. i. 301. 2. Seeds more or less shining, areolate-tuberculate, the 

 tubercules being in various degrees flattened and smoothed : M. rivularis, Gmel. 1. c. 302, & 

 M. lamprosperma, Cham. Linnaia, vi. 565, t. 7, f. 2, seed. — Wet places and running water, 

 Newfoundland, Labrador (Greenland), New Brunswick, Lower Canada, and on islands near 

 Mt. Desert, Maine, Great Cranberry Isle, Rand, Great Duck Island, Redjield; to Alaskan 

 Islands and Brit. Columbia, the smoother-seeded form ; also Oregon and California, mostly 

 the rough-seeded or typical species. From the latter form the imperfectly characterized 

 Ciaytonia Hallii, Gray, Proc. Am. Acad. xxii. 283 (C. Chamissonis, var. tenerrinia. Gray, 

 1. c. viii. 378, and probably Montia Hallii, Greene, Fl. Francis. 180), is not to be distinguished 

 even by coroUar characters. (Most cool and temperate parts of the world.) 



8. SPRAGUEA, Torr. (Isaac Sprague, inimitable botanical draughtsman, 

 illustrator of this and of very many other genera, among them those of the 

 Genera Am. Bor. Or. Illustrata. ) — PI. Frem. in Smiths. Contrib. vi. 4, t. 1, & 

 Bot. Mex. Bound, 37; Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 5143. — Single genuine species, 

 almost too near the following genus, but may be retained. 



S. umbellata, Torr. 1. c. Winter-annual or biennial with a tap-root, or perennial, gla- 

 brous, with fleshy spatulate leaves, either all rosulate-clustered at the crown and scape (2 to 

 8 inches high) naked or nearly so, or with few to several similar but smaller scattered 

 cauline leaves : inflorescence usually unibellate-cymose, at first capitate-glomerate, at length 

 5-13-radiate (usually from a short scarious involucre) into iml)ricately densely flowered 

 simple or forking scorpioid cyme-branches, or with these scattered ; flowers subsessile, 

 some scarious-bracteate : scarious sepals dull white or rose-tinged, in age 3 to 5 lines in 

 diameter, in anthesis equalling the rose or purple or whitish (ephemeral but marcescent) 

 petals; stamens two opposite petals and the third alternate: these and the style exserted. — 

 S. panicnlata, Kellogg,i Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci. ii. 187, f. 56; Curran, Bull. Calif. Acad. Sci. 

 i. 132, also 5. umbellata, var. nwntana, M. E. Jones, Bull. Torr. Club, ix. 31, are mere forms, 

 the latter sometimes with alternate flowering branches low down on the scape. Caltjptridium 

 vmbellafiim & C. paniculatum, Greene, Bull. Torr. Club, xiii. 144 (petals marcescent-connivent 

 around ovary and lower part of exserted style, not carried up on enlarging capsule). C. nu- 

 dum, Greene, Pittonia, i. 64.'-^ — Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains, from the Yosemite 

 to borders of Brit. Columbia, and Nevada to N. W. Wyoming ; in alpine and subalpine 

 stations quasi-perennial, but flowering only once ; on sand-washes of streams at lower levels 



1 The suppcsed difi'erence in the form of the seeds, adduced by California botanists for the separa- 

 tion of this species from S. umbellata, rests upon a misapprehension, as the seeds of the typical S. um- 

 bellata are quite as reniform as those of " S. panicnlata." 



2 Addsyn. S. nuda, Howell, Erythea, i. 39. t.Calyptridmm monospermum, Greene, Erythea, iii. 

 63, chiefly di.stinguished hy its " 1-seeded" capsules. 



