GOOSEFOOT FAMILY. 177 



7. C. Californicum "Wats. Soap Plant. Stout, erect or de- 

 cumbent at base, IJ to 2J ft. high from a very large simple or 

 branched root; herbage green, scarcely at all mealy; leaves broadly 

 triangular, truncate or cordate at base, or subhastate, sharply and 

 unequally sinuate-dentate, IJ to 3J in. long, on petioles 1 to 4 in. 

 long; flowers in dense clusters of 8 or 9, the clusters disposed in a 

 simple terminal spike, leafless or leafy at the very base; calyx oam- 

 panulate, barely exceeding 1 line in length, 5-lobed; lobes broadly 

 oblong, obtuse, denticulate at apex; pericarp persistent; fruit seed- 

 like, large, subglobose, or somewhat compressed, exserted, J to 1 line 

 broad; embryo completely annular. 



Wooden Valley Grrade near Mt. George, Napa Co. ; Loma Prieta, 

 Davy; Hollister, Seichell; Pacific Grove, Tidestrmn (whose specimens 

 show fruiting spikes over 1 ft. long); southward to Southern Cali- 

 fornia, where it is very common. Apr.-May. A root of a plant 

 taken from the Berkeley Hills in 1896 showed 3 strong tap-like 

 branches below the depressed caudex, descending vertically over 2 ft.; 

 two of these were simple, the third branched; all measured at their 

 greatest diameter 8 to 9 in. in circumference. The most northerly 

 locality recorded is the Marysville Buttes, Jepson, 1891. 



4. ROUBIEVA MoQ. 



Heavy-scented herb, with prostrate branches. Leaves alternate, 

 deeply pinnatifid. Flowers minute, perfect or pistillate, solitary or 2 

 or 3 together in the axils; calyx deeply urceolate, 3 to 5-toothed, 

 becoming saccate and contracted at the top, enclosing the fruit. 

 Stamens 5, included. Ovary glandular at the top; styles 3, somewhat 

 lateral, exserted. Pericarp membranaceous, glandular-dotted, thin 

 and deciduous; seed vertical, lenticular; embryo annular. 



1. R. multifida Moq. Branches 1 to 2 ft. long; leaves J to \\ in. 

 long; calyx in fruit obovate, very conspicuously reticulate-veined. 

 — fChenopodium multifidum L.) 



Native of Peru; first reported from Plumas Co. (prior to 1880); in 

 recent years become abundant on the San Francisco sand hills, and in 

 waste places about "West Oakland, Vallejo, and Napa; also at Vaca- 

 ville, where it was first noticed in 1891. 



5. ATRIPLEX L. 

 Herbs or shrubs, usually mealy or scurfy with bran-like scales. 

 Leaves alternate or opposite. Flowers monoecious or direcious, in 

 clusters, or mostly short spikes which are either simple or panicled, 

 the pistillate and staminate in separate inflorescences or mingled in the 

 same cluster (androgynous); staminate with a regular 4 or 5-parted 

 calyx, the pistillate consisting of a pistil enclosed between a pair of ap- 

 pressed foliaceous bracts, without perianth. Bracts either free or 

 united, much enlarged in fruit, the margin becorhing more or less 

 dilated or foliaceous and the sides thickened, indurated, muricate or 

 variously appendaged. (The ancient Latin name of these plants 

 derived originally from the Greek.) 



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