Saxijraga. SAXIFRAGACEJS. 193 



the base or tube of the calyx : anthers 2-celled. Carpels 2 (rarely 3 or more) 

 nearly or quite distinct, or more or less united into a 2-celled ovary : styles distinct, 

 persistent and at length diverging : stigmas thickish, mostly depressed-capitate or 

 reniform. Fruit of 2 follicles or a 2-lobed or 2-beaked capsule, opening down the 

 beaks or by the ventral suture. Seeds numerous ; the coat not wing-margined or 

 appendaged, mostly thin. Herbs, either stemless or short-stemmed ; with alternate 

 simple leaves, their petioles commonly sheathing at base, and small flowers in cymes, 

 cyraose panicles, or clusters, or sometimes solitary. 



A large genus, mainly of the northern hemisphere, and of cool or frigid regions : nearly 50 are 

 North American, fully half of them being common to the New and the Old World and chiefly of 

 high northern range. There are few in California ; but two of them (forming the first two sec- 

 tions) are peculiar. 



1. Stemless and large-leaved from a very thick and fleshy creeping rootstock: calyx 

 5-parted, spreading in fruit, nearly free from the two quite separate ovate 

 diverging follicles : seeds pretty large, angled. 



1. S. peltata, Torr. Rootstock large and long (1 to 3 inches in diameter), the 

 younger part scaly ; the apex sending up a stout scape (from a foot to at length 

 sometimes a yard high) and later one or more large centrally peltate and orbicular 

 9-14-lobed leaves on long and stout petioles : flowers pink-purple, numerous in a 

 corymbose cyme : petals roundish-oval, without claws : mature follicles turgid-ovate. 



-Benth. PI. Hartw. 311, & Bot. Wilkes Exp. Atl. t. 5 (1862), & 309 (1874); 

 Hook. f. Bot. Mag. t. 6074. Leptarrhena inundata, Behr in Proc. Calif. Acad. 

 i. 45 & 57. 



Along and in the beds of quick-flowing streamlets, through the .Sierra Nevada from Mariposa 

 Co. northward to the head-waters of the Sacramento (Pickering & Brackenridge, Fremont, Hart- 

 weg, &c.) ; also in Mendocino Co. (Bolander), &c. The rather fleshy stout scapes and petioles 

 (greedily eaten by the Indians, according to Dr. Kellogg) hirsute with rough tawny bristles ; the 

 former earliest appearing in spring, and bearing the ample at length loose cyme of flowers : the 

 leaves, beginning to appear a little later, are at first from 3 to 5 inches in diameter, but at length 

 a foot or more wide, of membranaceous texture, cupped or umbilicate at the centre, and the short 

 lobes or incisions irregularly toothed ; the 5 to 9 ribs rather strong at base, branching above the 

 middle. Calyx-lobes very obtuse. Petals 2 or 3 lines long and round-oval, becoming longer and 

 narrower with age. Filaments subulate. Carpels dehiscent down to the base. Seeds rather 

 few and large for the genus, oval or oblong, obtuse or truncate at both ends ; the coat thin, rather 

 soft and lax. Embryo proportionally large, more than half the length of the nucleus. Engler, 

 in his monograph of the genus, makes of this remarkable species a section, Pcltiphyllum. But, 

 except in the foliage, and in the soon spreading calyx, it accords with the section Bergenia, which 

 Engler even excludes from the Saxifrage genus. 



2. Stemless; the naked scape and later a short leaf or tivo from a bulb-like corm : 

 calyx slightly 5-lobed, campanulate, free from and nearly enclosing the two- 

 lobed capsule. 



2. S. Parryi, Torr. Somewhat pubescent : scape filiform and naked, 2 to 4 

 inches high, bearing 3 to 7 short-pedicelled flowers, followed by one or more shorfr- 

 petioled rounded-subcordate slightly several-lobed and crenate-toothed leaves (an 

 inch or less in diameter) : petals white, marked with brown-purple veins, ovate and 

 at length spatulate-oblong, inserted by short claws nearly in the sinuses of the cam- 

 panulate brown-nerved calyx : filaments slender-subulate, borne lower down : styles 

 slender, in fruit exserted out of the calyx : seeds minute, somewhat angled; the coat 

 rather loose. Bot. Mex. Bound. 69, t. 25. 



Dry hills, in and around San Diego and San Luis Rey, Parry, Newberry, Cleveland, &c. Flower- 

 ing in November and December after the rains begin ; then sending up its leaves ; after fruiting 

 all above the surface soon disappears until the next rainy season. Calyx barely 3 lines long, with 

 a broadly truncate base, and with triangular-ovate short erect lobes. Petals 2 lines long. The 

 habit and the high insertion of the petals in the orifice of the campanulate calyx are peculiar. 



