6 PLANTS FREMONTIAN.E. I 



ovata, turgida, plerumque quinquelocularis, loculicide dehiscens, pilis rigidis stellatis 

 dense vestita ; loculis polyspermia. " Semina ovata, glabra." — Frutex Californicus, 

 stellato-pubescens ; foliis alternis cordatis, lobatis; stipulis nullis vel caducisj 

 pedunculis oppositifoliis unifloris ; floribus amplis flavis. 



FREMONTIA CALIFORNICA. Tab. II. 



Hab. — Sources of the Sacramento, in the northern part of the Sierra Nevada 

 of California. Also hill-sides, Mariposa county, especially near the gold works 

 of the Merced Company; flowering in May. — Rev. Mr. A. Fitch. 



A beautiful shrub, usually from three to four feet high, but occasionally reaching 

 a height of ten feet, and having very much the appearance of an ordinary fig-tree. 

 The bark is of a brownish gray color ; the wood is hard, and apparently of slow 

 growth. Most of the leaves and flowers are produced at the extremity of very 

 short lateral branches or spurs. The former are petiolate, roundish in outline, 

 from three fourths of an inch to an inch, or sometimes even three inches, in dia- 

 meter,* three to seven-lobed ; the lobes entire, or crenate-toothed, of a thick (and 

 when old of a somewhat coriaceous) texture, green and sparsely stellate-pubescent 

 on the upper surface, ferruginous-tomentose underneath ; the petioles from four to six 

 lines long. In the specimens from Mariposa county, the leaves of the young shoots 

 are less deeply and more numerously lobed. The peduncles are about as long as 

 the petioles, stout, straight or somewhat recurved. Immediately under each 

 flower, and closely applied to the calyx, are three small lanceolate bracts. The 

 calyx is sulphur-yellow widely campanulate, about an inch and a quarter in 

 diameter, deeply five-parted; the segments roundish-obovate, and usually with 

 a short abrupt point, or sometimes mucronate. Externally the calyx is sparsely 

 stellate-pubescent, and on the inside at the base it is densely villous. The stamens 

 are equal, shorter than the calyx, and opposite to its segments : the filaments are 

 glabrous, the upper half filiform, spreading and distinct ; the lower part united into 

 a tube which embraces the ovary and nearly conceals it: the anthers are about 

 three lines long, extrorse, adnate, tortuous, and incurved at each end. In the bud 

 they are four-celled, but only two-celled in the expanded flower ; the cells are dis- 

 tinct and open longitudinally their whole length. Under the microscope the pollen 

 appears triangular-globose and reticulated. The ovary is ovoid, and densely 

 clothed with short conical hairs or processes. It is usually five-celled ;t each cell 

 containing eight or ten horizontal anatropous ovules : the style is about one third 

 longer than the stamens, and gradually tapers towards the summit, where it termi- 

 nates in a minute undivided stigma. The capsule is about as large as that of 

 Hibiscus Syriacus, and is closely covered with short stiff reddish stellate hairs ; a 

 portion of the calyx remaining at its base. At maturity it splits loculicidally nearly 



* The plate of Fremontia was engraved and printed before the specimens with larger leaves were 

 obtained. 



f Only four cells are represented in the plate, and no more were found in the flowers first examined. 



