BUTTERCUP FAMILY. 167 



oblong or linear spreading segments; raceme rather dense, virgate, 6 to 12 

 in. long; pedicels -4 to 8 lines long, or the lowest 1 in., strictly erect; flowers 

 blue, pink or white and running into various intermediate shades; sepals 4 to 6 

 lines long, equaled or exceeded by the straight spur; petals little shorter than 

 the sepals, the lateral pair emarginate or shortly cleft; follicles short-oblong, 

 3 to 5 (or 7) lines long, pubescent; seeds wing-margined. 



Dry open ground: Sierra Nevada foothills; lower Coast Kanges, especially 

 towards interior. Flowering at beginning of dry season. Rather common. 



D. recurvatum Greene. Sepals linear-oblong, conspicuously recurved. — 

 West side of the San Joaquin Valley in low lands. 



4. D. decorum F. & M. Stem lax, 1 to 1% ft. high; herbage perfectly 

 glabrous, except a slight pubescence on the branchlets and sometimes on the 

 pedicels; basal leaves thick, often somewhat succulent, roundish in outline, 

 3 to 5-parted into broadly cuneate segments, 1 to 1*4 in - long; segments entire, 

 or 3-cleft or -lobed ; upper leaves pedately 3 to 5 or rarely "-parted into linear- 

 oblong lobes; racemes mostly many-flowered, 4 in. long or less; pedicels slender. 

 spreading, U to 1 or 2 in. long; flowers purple-violet; sepals oval, 5 to 8 lines 

 long, equaled by the spur; petals oblique, 2-eleft, the upper whitish, purple- 

 veined, glabrous, smaller than the lower, these pubescent, especially above; 

 mature follicles thickish, oblong, 5 to 6 lines long, erect or the tips spreading; 

 seeds rough-papillose. 



Open woods of the Coast Range foothills from Napa Valley and the A x aca 

 Mts. south to Southern California. 



D. menziesii DC. Root a cluster of roundish connected tubes; stem often 

 flexuous; flowers few and large; follicles y 2 to % in. long, almost always 

 widely spreading. — Washington, Oregon and south to Humboldt Co. 



5. D. nudicaule T. & G. Red Larkspur. Stems slender, 1 to 2 ft. high, 

 few-leaved or quite naked; leaves somewhat succulent, parted into broad mostly 

 obtuse divisions; racemes 2 to 12-flowered, loose and open; pedicels 1 to 3% 

 in. long; calyx red, % to 1^4 in. long; petals partly or mostly yellow, the 

 upper narrowly obovate, sharply notched at summit, much larger than the 

 small cleft lower ones; follicles glabrous, divergent at summit. 



Banks of rivulets and rocky summits of the Coast Ranges from the Santa 

 Lucia Mts. to Mt. Tamalpais, Xapa Valley and northward. 



D. cardixale Hook. Stem leafy; leaves divided into narrowly linear or 

 lanceolate divisions; flowers usually larger and a deeper red than in D. nudi- 

 caule. — Southern California towards the coast. 



5. ACTAEA L. Baxeberry. 



Perennial herbs with bi- or tri-ternately compound ample leaves. Flowers 

 small, white, in a short terminal raceme. Sepals about 4, roundish or obovate, 

 concave, caducous. Petals small, entire, or none. Stamens many, with small 

 anthers and slender white filaments, more showy than the petals. Pistil 1 ; 

 ovules 10 in 2 rows; stigma broad, sessile, obscurely 2-lobed. Fruit a berry. 

 (Latin name of the Elder, transferred by Linnaeus to these plants.) 



1. A. rubra (Ait.) Willd. var. arguta Lawson. Plants with stoutish 

 rootstocks, propagating vegetatively by suckers; stems clustered, 1% to 2*4 

 ft. high; leaves mostly radical, 1 to 2 ft. long, triternately divided, then tri- 

 foliolate, or the middle divisions again ternate; leaflets rather deeply incised 

 and sharply serrate, 14,4 to 2% in. long; petioles short or almost none; racemes 

 terminal, 1 in. long, or with 1 or 2 small lateral racemes in the axils of the 

 upper Leaves; tips of sepals often pinkish; petals none, or 1 or 2 and white, 



