FOUQUIERA FAMILY. Fouquierlaceae. 



and forms close mats of foliage, sprinkled with light- 

 orange or salmon-colored flowers, a quarter of an inch 

 or more across, with fifteen to twenty, yellow stamens, 

 The effect is something like Anagallis, Scarlet Pimpernel, 

 hence the name. This is common in Yosemite and similai 

 places, up to nine thousand feet. 



FOUQUIERA FAMILY. Fouguieriaceae. 



A very small family, with one genus and only a few 

 species; natives of the Southwest and Mexico; the flowers 

 are brilliant red, in terminal clusters; the sepals five, nol 

 united; the petals five, united into a tube, the lobes some- 

 what spreading; the stamens ten to fifteen, protruding 

 inserted under the pistil; the ovary imperfectly three- 

 celled; the styles three, long, somewhat united; the seed! 

 three to six, oblong, flattened, surrounded by a mem- 

 branous wing or long, white hairs. These plants are verj 

 puzzling, but interesting, and as they are not nearly relatec 

 they have at various times been classified with othei 

 families. 



A magnificent desert shrub, when ii 

 Flaming Sword, full bloom, but strangely forbidding ii 



Flower ' C&ndle aS . PGCt in Spite f itS beaut y- Its man 3 



Fouquitra s ^ifi stems, from six to twenty feet tall 



splendens entirely without branches, stand up stifflj 



R ed from the root, like a bunch of wands, anc 



Spring are armed their whole length with terribl 



Ariz., Cal., New , , 



Mex thorns, which in the spring are maskec 



with beautiful foliage, like little appli 

 leaves. From the tip of each wand springs a glorio 

 cluster, from six to ten inches long, composed of hundre( 

 of scarlet flowers, each about an inch long, and crowd 

 closely together, suggesting a flame and waving to ac 

 fro in the wind with a startling effect against the pa 

 desert sand. When the flowers and leaves are gone, t 

 clumps of dry, thorny sticks look quite dead and it is ha 

 to believe that they were so splendid early in the seaso 

 They make an impenetrable fence and are much used 

 the Indians for hedges. 



294 



