DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS 75 



SAXIFRAGA'CE^. SAXIFRAGE FAMILY 



Herbs or shrubs. Leayes opposite or alternate without 

 stipules. Calyx either free from or partially united to the 

 ovary. Petals and stamens inserted on the calyx. Stamens 

 not more than twice the number of calyx lobes. Carpels 

 2-5, partially or completely united into a compound ovary. 

 Styles distinct. Seeds with endosperm. In the currants and 

 gooseberries the fruit forms a berry. 



I. SAXIF'RAGA, Saxifrage 



Herbs with simple or palmately lobed leaves and cymose 

 or panicled flowers. (Flowers rarely solitary.) Calyx 5-lobed, 

 either free from the ovary or with the lower part of the 

 tube coherent. Petals 5, entire, inserted on the calyx tube. 

 Stamens 10. Capsule consisting of 2 carpels united at the 

 base, the styles soon diverging and becoming beaks on the 

 akenes. Placenta axillary. Leaves often in radical clusters 

 and flowers on a scape. 



S. Calif or'nica Greene. Leaves few, rather thick, somewhat 

 clothed with glandular hairs, oval to elliptical, on broad petioles ; 

 margin crenate or dentate. Scape 6-18 in. high^ flowers in a loose 

 panicle. Calyx nearly free from the ovary, with reflexed sepals. 

 Petals oblong, white, thrice as long as the sepals. Stamens with 

 filaments inserted under the edge of a disk which equals the summit 

 of the ovary. Blooming in early spring and found on cool slopes 

 throughout California. 



n. BOYKHTIA 



Perennial herbs with creeping rootstocks, leafy stems, and 

 paniculate corymbs or cymes of small white flowers. Leaves 

 alternate, round-kidney-shaped, palmately lobed or toothed, 

 the teeth glandular at tip ; petioles with stipule-like dilations 

 at base. Calyx o-lobed, with globular tube, adherent to the 

 ovary. Petals 5, entire. Stamens 5, with short filaments. 

 Pod splitting down the beaks, %-celled. 



B. occidentalis T. & G. Diffusely branched, with slender stems 

 1 or 2 ft. high. Leaves somewhat scattered, thin, 5-7-lobed, 1-3 in. 



