BUTTERCUP FAMILY. Ranunculaceae. 



There are many varieties of Clematis, or Virgin's Bower, 

 familiar to us all, both East and West, and general favorites, 

 widely distributed and flourishing in temperate regions; 

 perennials, woody below, which is unusual in this family. 

 Usually they are beautiful trailing vines, which climb over 

 bushes and- rocks, holding on by their twisting, curling 

 leaf-stalks. The flowers have no petals, or only very 

 small ones, but their sepals, usually four, resemble petals; 

 the stamens are numerous. The numerous pistils form a 

 round bunch of akenes, their styles developing into long 

 feathery tails, and these gray, plumy heads are very 

 conspicuous and ornamental, when the flowers are gone. 

 The leaves are opposite, which is unusual in this family, 

 with slender leaf -stalks, and are usually compound. Some 

 plants have only staminate flowers and some only pistillate 

 ones, and the appearance is quite different, the flowers with 

 starnens being handsomer. 



Near the summit of Mt. Lowe, and in 



similar P laces we find this beautiful vine 

 Clematis clambering over the rocks. The flowers 



lasidniha measure an inch and a quarter to over two 



White, pale- inches across and they vary in tint from 

 almost pure white to a lovely soft shade of 

 California pale-yellow, the handsome clusters form- 



ing a beautiful contrast to the dark-green 

 foliage. The stamens and pistils are on different plants. 

 The flowers, leaves, and stems are all more or less velvety 

 and the akenes have tails an inch long, forming a head, 

 about two inches across. The flowers are often so numer- 

 ous as to make conspicuous masses of pale color on canyon 

 sides, in the Coast Range and Sierra Nevada Mountains. 



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