202 SAXIFRAGACEiE. Parnassia. 



A genus of about a dozen species, of the northern temperate and frigid regions, one species 

 extending round the world, and two peculiar to the Atlantic United States. 



1. P. palustris, Linn. Leaves from ovate to slightly cordate, an inch or less 

 in length : scape a span to a foot high : petals oval or obovate, naked and without 

 a claw, half an inch or less in length, the veins sparingly branching : bristle-like 

 filaments of the appendages 8 to 20 in each set. 



Var. Californica, Gray. Larger : leaves one or two inches long and scape a 

 foot or two high, often leafless : petals very broad, full half an, inch long, more 

 veiny, and the veins more numerous and freely branching : bristles of each appen- 

 dage about 24 and almost capillary. 



Wet places in the Sierra Nevada, &c, from Mariposa Co. northward, and on Red Mountain, 

 Mendocino Co. (Kellogg, Bolandcr), chiefly the var. Californica. The species extends far north- 

 ward and round the world along the northern border of the temperate zone. 



2. P. fimbriata, Banks. Leaves from reniform to cordate-ovate, an inch or 

 more in diameter : scape slender, about a foot high : petals obovate or oblong (4 or 

 5 lines long), with a narrowed base or short claw, the margins fringed below the 

 middle or towards the base : filaments of the appendages 5 to 9 in each cluster and 

 united below into a fleshy carinate scale, or sometimes a dilated scale destitute of 

 bristle-like filaments. — Hook. Bot. Misc. i. 43, t. 23. 



Near Shasta Mountain, with Darlingtonia, Brewer. Also mountains of Nevada and Colorado, 

 and northward to British Columbia. Varies in the form of the leaves, form and size of the 

 petals, in the amount of fringe, and greatly in the stamen-appendages. 



10. PHILADELPHUS, Linn. Syringa. Mock Orange. 

 Calyx with turbinate tube adnate to the ovary nearly or quite to its summit ; the 

 limb 4 - 5-parted, valvate in the bud, persistent. Petals 4 or 5, large, obovate or 

 roundish, convolute in the bud. Stamens 20 to 40 : filaments subulate or filiform. 

 Styles 3 to 5, united at base or sometimes almost to the top : stigmas oblong or 

 thickish, introrse, sometimes connate. Capsule inferior, 3 - 5-celled, loculicidally 

 3 - 5-valved from the apex, and the valves in age commonly 2-parted. Seeds very 

 numerous on placentae projecting from the axis, mostly pendulous, oblong, with a 

 thin and loose reticulated coat, usually prolonged at both ends or fimbriate at the 

 hilum. — ; Shrubs ; with opposite and entire or toothed ovate or oblong leaves, more 

 or less petioled, deciduous, and without stipules ; the flowers large and showy, some- 

 times odorous, thyreoid- or paniculate-cymose, or occasionally solitary in the axils, 

 white or rarely cream-color. 



A genus of a dozen or more ill-defined species, probably reducible to five or six, natives of both 

 sides of temperate North America, Japan, and the Himalayas, two or three of them much planted 

 for ornament. 



1 . P. Lewisii, Pursh. Shrub 3 to 5 feet high, spreading, glabrous or almost so : 

 leaves all entire or nearly so, from ovate to ovate-lanceolate, an inch or two long : 

 flowers in a narrow thyrsus, short-pedicelled : calyx-lobes rarely twice the length of 

 the tube : petals obovate or oblong, half an inch or rather more in length : styles 

 distinct at the apex : stigmas narrow. — Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 595. 



Var. Californicus, Gray : a form with the flowers more numerous in a mainly 

 leafless and pedunculate terminal cluster. — P. Californicus, Benth. PL Hartw. 

 309. P. Leioisii, var. parvifolius, Torr. in Pacif. E. Eep. iv. 90. 



Foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, along streams, from Mariposa Co. to the Upper Sacramento ; 

 chiefly the naked-flowered variety. The species extends through Oregon and Idaho to British 

 Columbia. 



2. P. Gordonianus, Lindl. Shrub 6 to 12 feet high, with spreading or re- 

 curved branches, sparsely pubescent or hairy, or almost glabrous : leaves ovate or 



