304 LINACEAE (FLAX FAMILY) 



2. ERODIUM L'Her. STOBKSBILL 



Like Geranium but with only 5 stamens. The carpel-tails long bearded on 

 the inner side and becoming spirally twisted. Peduncles 2-several-flowered, 

 with a 4-bracted involucre, either terminal or lateral. 



1. Erodium cicutarium L'Her. Ait. Hort. Kew 2: 414. 1789. Hairy, much 

 branched from the base: leaves pinnate; the leaflets laciniately pinnatifid, 

 with narrow acute lobes: peduncles exceeding the leaves, bearing a 4-8- 

 flowered umbel: sepals 2-6 mm. long, acute: petals bright rose-color, a little 

 longer: tails of the carpels 2.5-5 cm. long: pedicels slender, at length reflexed, 

 the fruit still erect. Known as ALFILARIA or PIN-CLOVER. From the Rocky 

 Mountains to the far west. 



59. OXALIDACEAE Lindl. WOOD SORREL FAMILY 



Annual or perennial, leafy stemmed or acaulescent herbs, often with root- 

 stocks or scaly bulbs, with sour sap (oxalic acid), and mostly palmately 3- 

 foliolate leaves. Stipules commonly present as scarious margins to the bases 

 of the petioles; leaflets mostly obcordate. Flowers perfect, in umbel-like or 

 forking cymes or rarely solitary, or mostly on rather long peduncles. Sepals 5, 

 often unequal. Petals 5, white, purple or yellow. Stamens 10-15. Ovary 

 5-lobed, 5-celled; styles united or distinct; ovules 2-many in each cell. Fruit 

 a loculicidal, globose or columnar capsule. 



OXALIS L. WOOD SORREL 



Low, often acaulescent herbs with a sour sap, alternate 1-3-f oliolate leaves, 

 few-many-flowered peduncles, 10 stamens, and a 5-celled columnar or ovoid 

 loculicidal capsule, with 2-several seeds in each cell. 



Acaulescent; flowers not yellow 1. O. violacea. 



Caulescent; flowers yellow . . . . . . . . . 2. O. stricta. 



1. Oxalis violacea L. Sp. PI. 434. 1753. Acaulescent glabrous perennial, 

 5-10 cm. high; the petioles and scapes from a short scaly bulb-like rhizome: 

 leaflets about 10 mm. long, broadly obcordate, with an open sinus: scapes 

 several, longer than the leaves, umbellately 3-12-flowered: sepals ovate, ob- 

 tuse: petals rose- violet, three times as long as the sepals: capsule ovoid: seeds 

 2-3 in each cell, rugose-tuberculate. An exceedingly acid plant. Common 

 eastward and said to extend into Colorado. 



2. Oxalis stricta L. Sp. PI. 435. 1753. Glabrate or more or less strigillose, 

 especially on the stems and pedicels, perennial; stem more or less branched, 

 10-25 cm. high: leaves bright green, without stipules; the leaflets obcordate, 

 sensitive: sepals oblong, somewhat ciliate and pubescent on the back: petals 

 pale yellow, longer than the sepals: capsule columnar, 15-25 mm. long. (0. 

 coloradensis Rydb. Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 29: 243. 1903. More nearly gla- 

 brous.) Open woods along streams; from the mountains eastward. 



60. LINACEAE Dumort. FLAX FAMILY 



Herbs or shrubs, with alternate or opposite leaves and perfect, regular, 

 symmetrical, 5-merous flowers. Calyx imbricated. Petals convolute. Sta- 

 mens united at the base. Capsule with twice as many cells as there are styles, 

 8-10-seeded. 



