BUCKWHEAT FAMILY 



(Polygonaceai) 



Shrubs or herbs with usually alternate entire leaves and 

 sheathlike stipules about the swollen joints of the stems. 

 Flowers small, regular; petals none, the calyx 5-6 parted, often 

 colored resembling a corolla. Stamens 4 to 9 inserted near 

 the base of calyx; styles 2 to 4, ovary superior. Fruit a tri- 

 angular or lens-shaped achene. 



TURKISH RUGGING (Chorizdnthe staticoides, Benth). Flow- 

 ers usually reddish, but sometimes white, small, 1 to 3, included 

 in a tubular ribbed involucre, tipped at its lobes with hooked 

 spines. Stamens 9 or 6. Leaves mostly in a basal rosette 

 which disappears early. Blooms in the dry days of summer, 

 on arid hillsides and plains, Southern and Central California. 



This odd, much-branched, all but leafless little plant, ex- 

 ceedingly brittle when dry, and very rosy in stem and branch, 

 is often an influential factor in the color scheme of the dry hill- 

 sides of summer, spreading low over considerable areas. 



The genus Chorizanthe is represented on our Pacific Coast 

 by some thirty species, plants of the deserts and dry hills, and 

 the unraveling of many of the species is an expert's job. 

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