BUTTERCUP FAMILY. Ranunculaceae. 



either white, with a bluish or greenish spot on the tip of 

 each sepal, or very pale pink, with a purplish or bluish 

 spot. The dull, yellowish-green leaves are rather thickish 

 and downy, the pods erect. This grows in dryish places, 

 at moderate altitudes, and freely around Yosemite. 



A splendid flower when at its best, 



or from six inches to a foot and a half tall 

 Blue with a smooth stem, reddish below, and 



Spring, summer smooth, bright-green leaves, pale on the 

 Northwest and under side> round in genera i outline, the 



lower ones with long, reddish leaf-stalks 

 sheathing the stem, the roots thick but not tuberous. 

 The beautiful flowers are sometimes an inch and a half 

 across, on long, rather spreading pedicels, few or many, in 

 a long loose cluster, the buds slightly downy. The general 

 effect of the flowers is deep bright-blue, but when we 

 examine them more closely we find that the slightly 

 woolly spurs are purplish, the blue sepals have on the back 

 protuberances, which are pinkish on the front and greenish 

 on the back, the two, small, upper petals are white, 

 delicately striped with purple, and the lower ones, which 

 are fuzzy with tufts of white down and two-cleft, are deep 

 pinkish-purple; sometimes the whole flower is much paler 

 in color. The anthers are large and green at first, be- 

 coming small and yellow, their threadlike filaments curling. 

 This grows on dry hills. D. Pdrryi, of California, is about 

 two feet tall, similar in coloring, but even handsomer, with 

 a cluster nearly a foot long, closely crowded with beautiful 

 flowers, each an inch and a half across. The lower leaves 

 are slashed nearly to the center, into seven divisions, each 

 with three, long, narrow lobes. 



