CALIFORNIA PLANTS IN THEIR HOMES 



other branch has flowers with but one ovary, which is quite 

 free from calyx, and the ovary walls become thick and 

 juicy as the fruits ripen. But many of the rose family 

 have flowers with a great number of pistils. We think of 

 strawberry pistils as seeds because they are so tiny, but if 

 you look closely, you will see the styles as well as the 

 little, hard ovaries. The part of the strawberry flower 

 that we like to eat is, evidently, the receptacle. Are 

 blackberry and raspberry pistils and receptacles like those 

 of the strawberry ? Has the rose one or many pistils ? Find 

 some rose fruits, or hips, as they are called. What part of 

 the flower is the soft, scarlet tissue that the birds like to 

 eat ? Have you thought out why all these members of the 

 rose family have some part of their fruits showy and well 

 flavored when the seeds are ripe ? Why should they be 

 green in color and disagreeable to taste before this ? Of 

 our native members of this family, some have edible fruits. 

 We have wild cherries, wild plums, wild almonds and vari- 

 ous kinds of so-called berries. There are some of this fam- 

 ily that choose to have the wind carry their seeds. Did 

 you ever see the fluffy fruits of the California mahogany 

 tree ? They are so abundant that mountain slopes covered 

 with these trees look almost gray in the summer and 

 autumn. The greasewood, too, whose plume-like flower 

 clusters whiten our foot-hills in early summer, has dry fruits. 

 The highest of all this group is the pea family, Legumin- 

 osae. We have already noticed one branch of this family, the 

 one having flowers with mechanical genius. Naturally flow- 

 ers of this sort, in adapting themselves so cleverly to insects, 

 take on bright colors or are fragrant, so some of our most at- 

 tractive garden flowers belong to this group. How many have 

 you found ? Another branch of lyeguminosse contains the 

 California Judas tree, and a third branch includes the Aca- 

 cias. The Leguminosse is one of the useful families; some- 

 times we use the food the plant has stored in the seeds ; you 



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