38 PORTTTLACACE.E. (PURSLANE FAMILY.) 



1. C. pygmsea, Gray. Smooth, with a thick fusiform root: leaves 

 linear, with broad scariously winged underground petioles : scapes mostly 

 simple, an inch or two high, with a pair of small scarious bracts : sepals glandular- 

 dentate: petals red. — Proc. Am. Acad. viii. 623. Talinum pygmaium, Gray. 

 Alpine region, Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming to the Sierra 

 Nevada in California and Cascade Mountains in Washington. 



2. C. Nevadensis, Gray. Very similar, but somewhat larger; with a 

 pair of larger leafy bracts and entire somewhat longer sepals, white petals and 

 more numerous ovules. — In the Wasatch ( Watson), probably in the TJintas, 

 and westward. 



4. CLAYTONIA, L. Spring-Beauty. 



Seeds tew, black and shining. — Low glabrous succulent herbs, with 

 opposite or alternate leaves, and white or rose-colored flowers in loose ter- 

 minal or axillary and simple or compound naked racemes, or sometimes um- 

 bellate, not ephemeral. 



* Annuals, with fibrous roots. 

 h- Stems simple, bearing a single pair of leaves which are often connate. 



1. C. perfoliata, Donn. Radical leaves long-petioled, broadly rhomboidal 

 or deltoid or deltoid-cordate, obtuse; the cauline pair more or less united, usually 

 forming u single somewhat orbicular perfoliate leaf, concave above : racemes 

 usually nearly sessile and loosely flowered, the short pedicels often secund. — 

 Prom the Uintas and the Wasatch to California, and thence northward to 

 Alaska. 



2. C- COrdifolia, Watson. Stem from a slender running rootstock : 

 radical leaves broadly cordate, acutish ; cauline pair sessile, ovate, acute: racemes 

 few-flowered, with slender pedicels : petals thrice longer than the rounded sepals. 

 — Proc. Am. Acad. xvii. 365. N. W. Montana ( Watson), to Idaho and 

 Oregon. 



-t- •»- Stems usually branching, leafy. 



3. C. Chamissonis, Esch. Stems weak and slender, erect or decum- 

 bent, stoloniferous and rooting at the joints : leaves opposite, oblanceolate or 

 spatulate : racemes few-flowered ; the flowers very variable in size, on slender 

 pedicels : petals white. — C. aquatica, Nutt. Abundant in Colorado and north- 

 ward to the British boundary and westward. In the spray of the Lower Palls 

 of the Yellowstone. 



* * Perennials, from a deep-seated tuber. 



4. C. Caroliniana, Michx. Radical leaves very few, spatulate ; cauline 

 <mes a. single pair, ovate-lanceolate or oval, subspatulate .at the base or ab- 

 ruptly decurrent into a petiole : pedicels slender, nodding : flowers in a loose 

 raceme : sepals and petals very obtuse, the latter pale rose-color with deeper 

 veins. — In the Rocky Mountains and eastward to the Atlantic. 



"Var. sessilifolia, Torr. Radical leaf narrow ; cauline sessile, lanceolate 

 to linear : raceme nearly sessile and cymose, with a single scarious bract at 

 base : sepals acutish. — C. Caroliniana, var. lanceolata, of Bot. King's Exp., 

 PI. Colorado, and the Hayden Reports. Colorado and northward, and west 

 ward to the Sierra Nevada. 



