10 SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 
You may recognize in the picture on this page the 
likeness of one of our most troublesome native 
weeds. The yellow flowers are often smaller than 
here represented, and the upper leaves are generally 
narrower. Indeed, this plant, along with many 
others of this coast, is provokingly variable in its 
appearance. Pull off a corolla, aud a single un- 
divided style is uncovered. Follow this down into 
the calyx, and you discover that it grows from be- 
tween four seed-like ovaries. ‘These are more easily 
seen in an older calyx, as shown at a. Now it hap- 
pens that this peculiar compound ovary, together 
with the coiled inflorescence, belongs only to plants 
of the order Borraginacee. A coiled inflorescence 
and a pistil with a divided style is found only in 
plants of the order Hydrophyllacew.- Any plant 
with a four-parted ovary and regular flowers may 
be sought under the former order. Creeping Helio- 
trope or Blue Weed (//eliotropinin, Curassucicum) is 
a Borraginaceous plant with ovaries merely 4-lobed. 
The Mint Family has fruit similar to that of the 
Borrages (see d and ¢ in the figure on p. 11), but the 
flowers are irregular. The Verbenas are distin- 
guished from the Mints by nearly regular flowers 
and a 4-lobed ovary, which does not split into parts 
until quite ripe. (See a in the left-hand figure on page 11.) 
The plant figured at the top of the opposite page is common in open woods throughout 
the Coast Ranges and the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada. The flowers are white, tinged 
with purple. Each of the three incurved petals is covered with hairs on the inner side, 
and is marked near the base by a depression which is seen upon the outside as a project- 
ing boss. This is called a gland, and is one of the characteristic marks of the genus. 
Since the three-cornered ovary is superior, we at once refer the plant to the order 
Liliaceez, where we again read the characters given in each of the ihree series. The 
stamens in this plant are hypogynous, not perigynous, and the anthers are extrorse. 
Therefore, SERIES I is passed. Sxries III is excluded, because the anthers in this plant 
are not versatile. Evidently the name is to be sought under Series II, which is divided 
into three sections. You now see why you should have dug up one of the plants, . How- 
ever, you can decide the genus without knowing that the plant‘is ‘bulbous. ° It can not 
belong to § 3, since one of the two genera under it has wnbellate flowers, and the other 
solitary flowers. In § 2, the perianth segments are similar. Our plant then must be sought 
in § 1, and under the head ‘** * Perianth segments unlike,” which leads to Calochortus, 
Amsinckialycopsoides. u. Calyx spread 
apart to show the ripe akenes. 
