376 



SAURURACEAE 



Coast Range hills from Monterey Co. and Contra Costa Co. to Shasta Co., 

 thence southward in the Sierra Nevada foothills to Sacramento Co. Most 

 frequent in the North Coast Ranges from the Vaca Mts. to Sonoma Co. Mar.- 



Apr. 



Locs. Little Sur River ace. F. G. Woodcock; Santa Cruz Co. ace. Anderson; Port Costa, 

 Chandler 866, Hall 1682; Ross Valley, Chesnut $ Drew; Bear Valley, Marin Co., Alice King; 

 Howell Mt., Napa Co., Tracy 1561; St. Helena, Jepson 507; Araquipa Hills, Solano Co., Jepson; 

 Sonoma, Sioletti; Healdsburg, Alice King; Cazadero; Glen Ellen; Marysville Buttes, Jepson; 

 Fair Oaks, Sacramento Co., M. S. Baker; Butte Creek, Butte Co., B. M. Austin 151; Redding, 

 Heller 7882. 



Refs. ARISTOLOCHIA CAIJFORNICA Torr. Pae. R. Rep. 4 e : 128 (1857), type loc. Corte Madera, 

 Marin Co., Bigelow; Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 364 (1901). 



SAURURACEAE. LIZARD-TAIL FAMILY. 



Ours perennial astringent herbs, with nodose scape-like stems and alternate 

 entire petioled leaves. Flowers perfect, bracteate, in a dense terminal spike. 

 Perianth none. Stamens in ours 5 to 8. Ovary 1-celled, with 1 to 5 stigmas. 

 Fruit a capsule or berry. North America and Asia, 3 genera and 4 species. 



1. ANEMOPSIS Hook. 



Stoloniferous herb with aromatic rootstock and astringent somewhat spicy 

 herbage. Leaves mostly radical. Spike conical, surrounded at base by a per- 

 sistent showy involucre of 5 to 8 bracts; each flower (except the lowest) also 

 subtended by a small white bract. Ovary sunk in the rachis of the spike; 

 stigmas 2 or 3. Capsule dehiscent at the apex. One species. (Greek anemone, 

 and opsis, appearance, since the flowers resemble those of Anemone.) 



1. A. californica Hook. YERBA MANSA. Stems hollow, y 2 to 2 feet high, 

 with a broadly ovate or elliptic clasping leaf above the middle and a fascicle 

 of 1 to 3 small petioled leaves in the axil; radical leaves elliptic-oblong, 

 rounded above, often somewhat narrowed toward the cordate base, 2 to 8 

 inches long, on petioles 1 to 8 inches long ; spikes y% to l 1 /^ inches long ; involu- 

 cral bracts white (or reddish beneath), oblong, y 2 to V/^ inches long; floral 

 bracts obovate, clawed, 2,y 2 to 3 lines long; ovules 6 to 10 on each placenta. 



Common in saline and rather wet lowlands: lower Sacramento Valley south 

 through the San Joaquin and South Coast Ranges to Southern California and 

 north through the Mohave Desert to Inyo Co. East to Utah and w. Texas and 

 south into Mexico. An infusion of the root is used by Spanish-Calif ornians 

 both as a liniment for skin troubles and as a tea for disorders of the blood. 



Refs. ANEMOPSIS CALIFORNICA Hook. Ann. Nat. Hist. 1: 136 (1838); Hook. & Arn. Bot. 

 Beech. 390, t. 92 (1841); Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 5292 (1862); Cov. Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 4: 

 192 (1893); Blochman, Erythea, 2: 39 (1894); Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. 162 (1901). Anemia 

 californica Nutt. Ann. Nat. Hist. 1: 136 (1838), type loc. Santa Barbara and San Diego. 



POLYGONACEAE. BUCKWHEAT FAMILY. 



Ours herbs or low bushes with simple leaves. Flowers small, regular, mostly 

 perfect, without corolla, and rarely solitary. Calyx 5 to 6-cleft or -parted. 

 Stamens 4 to 9, more or less attached to the calyx. Ovary superior, 1-celled, 

 1-ovuled and bearing 2 or 3 styles or stigmas. 'Fruit an achene, mostly tri- 

 angular in ours, sometimes lenticular. About 32 genera and 700 species, found 

 in all lands of the earth. 



Bibliog. Bentham, Geo., On the Eriogoneae (Trans. Linn. Soc. 17: 401-420, 1837). Tor- 

 rey & Gray, Rev. Eriogoneae (Proc. Am. Aead. 8: 145-200, 1870). Watson, S., Eriogonum, 

 Chorizanthe (Proc. Am. Acad. 12: 254-273, 1877). Parry, C. C., Chorizanthe (Proc. Davenp. 

 Acad. Sci. 4: 45-63, 1884; 5: 174-176, 1889) ; Lastarriaea (1. c. 5: 35-36, 1886) ; Notes of 

 Eriogoneae (Bot. Gaz. 11: 54, 1886). Small, J. K., Monog. N. Am. Species of Polygonum 

 (Mem. Columbia Coll. Dept. Bot. 1: 1-183, 1895); Studies in N. Am. Polygonaeeae (Bull. 

 Torr. Club, 25: 40-53, 1898; 33: 51-57, 1906). Greene, E. L., New Species of Eriogonuro 

 (Pitt. 5: 67-71, 1902) ; New Species of Polygonum (1. e. 197-203, 1903) ; Certain Polygo- 



