Claytonia. PORTULACACE^E. 75 



Santa Inez Mountains, near Santa Barbara, Brewer. The specimens collected are a foot tall or 

 more, the racemes elongated. 



3. C. maritima, Nutt. Glaucous : stems spreading, 3 or 4 inches high, with 

 small bract-like leaves above the base : lower leaves obovate or obovate-spatulate, an 

 inch long, fleshy, obtuse : flowers in a loose dichotomous terminal panicle, on slender 

 pedicels, " red, rather large and showy " : sepals ovate, acute : capsule oblong-ovate, 

 2 lines long, exceeding the sepals, acutish. Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 197. 



San Diego (Nuttall) ; Coronados Islands, Thurber. A little known species. 



* * Alpine plants with thick fusiform roots, the scape-like mostly \-flowered stems 

 shorter than the leaves: petals 6 to 8 : seeds black and shining, not tuberculate. 



4. C. pygmaea, Gray. Smooth : leaves all radical, linear, 1 or 2 inches long, 

 with broad scariously winged underground petioles : scapes mostly simple, 1 or 2 

 inches high, with a pair of small scarious bracts: sepals suborbicular, glandular- 

 dentate, 2 or 3 lines long: petals red: ovules 15 to 20: capsule obtuse, nearly 

 equalling the calyx. Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 623. Talinum pygmceum, Gray in 

 Am. Jour. Sci. 2 ser. xxxiii. 407 ; Watson, Bot. King Exp. 42, in part. 



In the Sierra Nevada on the Yosemite Trail, at 8,000 feet altitude (Bolander) ; Mt. Lyell 

 (Muir) ; northward to Washington Territory, and in the mountains eastward to Colorado and 

 Southern Utah. 



5. C. Nevadensis, Gray, 1. c. Closely resembling the last, but somewhat 

 larger : scapes 1 to 3 inches high, with a pair of larger leafy bracts, 1 3-flowered : 

 sepals entire, 3 or 4 lines long : petals white : ovules 30 to 40. Talinum pygmceum, 

 Watson, 1. c., in part. 



In the Sierra Nevada ; Cisco (Kellogg) ; Summit (Bolander) ; Plumas Co. (Mrs. Pulsifer Ames) ; 

 and eastward in the E. Humboldt and Wahsatch Mountains, Watson. 



3. CLAYTONIA, Linn. 



Sepals 2, persistent. Petals 5, equal. Stamens 5. Ovary free, few-ovuled : 

 style 3-cleft. Capsule membranaceous, globose or ovoid, 3-valved. Seeds few, 

 black and shining. Low glabrous succulent herbs ; with opposite or alternate 

 leaves, and delicate white or rose-colored flowers in loose terminal or axillary, simple 

 or compound naked racemes, or sometimes umbellate, lasting more than one day. 



A genus of about 20 species, belonging principally to the cooler portions of North America and 

 northeastern Asia. The species are most numerous in western North America. 



* Annuals, with fibrous roots. 

 -*- Stems simple, bearing a single pair of leaves which are often connate. 



1. C. perfoliata, Donn. Stems 2 to 12 inches high: radical leaves long- 

 petioled, broadly rhomboidal, or deltoid, or deltoid-cordate, J to 3 inches broad, 

 obtuse ; the cauline pair more or less united upon one or both sides, usually forming 

 a single somewhat orbicular perfoliate leaf, to 2 inches in diameter, concave above : 

 racemes simple or compound, usually nearly sessile and loosely flowered, the short 

 pedicels often secund : petals a line or two long : capsule about 3-seeded. Bot. 

 Mag. t. 1336. C. Cttbensis, Bonpl. PI. ^Equin. t. 25. 



Var. parviflora, Torr. Radical leaves all linear or linear-spatulate ; the cauline 

 perfoliate. Pacif. E. Eep. iv. 71. C. parviflora, Dougl.; Hook. Fl. i. 225, t. 73. 

 C. gypsophiloides, Fischer & Meyer ; Sweet, Brit. Fl. Gard. 2 ser. t. 375. Regel, 

 Sert. Petrop. t. 34. 



Var. spathulata, Torr. 1. c. Low and often very slender : radical leaves linear; 

 the cauline pair distinct or partially united on one side, ovate to lanceolate, usually 

 much shorter than the raceme. C. spathulata, Dougl.; Hook. Fl. i. 225, t. 74. 



