KRAMERIA FAMILY. Krameriaceae. 



KRAMERIA FAMILY. Krameriaceae. 



A small family, distributed from the southern United 

 States to Chili; hairy herbs or low shrubs, without stipules; 

 leaves alternate; two bracts on the flower-stalk; flowers 

 purplish, irregular, perfect; sepals four or five, usually 

 large, the outer one commonly wider than the others; 

 petals usually five, smaller than the sepals, the three upper 

 ones with long claws, often united by their claws, some- 

 times the middle one of the three lacking, the two lower 

 ones reduced to mere fleshy glands and not resembling 

 petals; stamens three or four, united at least at base; 

 ovary superior, with a slender style; fruit spiny, seed one. 

 A desert shrub, with a pleasant smell 

 '<ramtria Grbyi ^ke balsam, two to four feet high, with 

 Purplish-pink gray, woody stems, abruptly branching, 

 Spring armed with long, brown and gray thorns, 



and clothed with very small, silvery-gray 

 leaves, downy and thickish. The flowers are curious in 

 shape and color, with five, large, purplish-pink sepals and 

 five, small petals, the two lower ones minute and reduced 

 to glands. The pistil is dark red, the three stamens have 

 green filaments and red anthers, the ovary is downy and 

 prickly, and the downy buds are pale pink. 



CALTROP FAMILY. Zygophyllaceae. 



Not a large family, widely distributed in warm and 

 tropical regions; ours are herbs or shrubs, with opposite or 

 alternate, compound leaves, with stipules and toothless 

 leaflets; flowers complete, usually with five sepals and five 

 petals, and usually twice the number of stamens, with 

 swinging anthers, alternate stamens sometimes longer, 

 filaments often with a small scale near the middle; ovary 

 superior, usually surrounded at the base by a disk; style 

 one, with a five- to ten-lobed stigma; fruit dry. 



There are several kinds of Covillea. 



A graceful, evergreen shrub, common in 

 Creosote-bush, arid regions and a characteristic feature 

 Hediondilla f . 



Covillea giutindsa of the desert landscape, filling the air 

 (Larrea Mexicana)vfith its very strong, peculiar odor. It is 

 Yellow from three to ten feet high, with many 



Southwe^T Httle branches with blackish knots at the 



joints, clothed with sticky, dull yellowish- 



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