PARSLEY FAMILY. 289 



winged at the very base, 7 lines long or less; calyx-lobes longer than the styles, 

 narrowed at apex into a sharp point or cusp. 



Lowlands near the coast from Monterey to Berkeley, Pt. Reyes and Peta- 

 luma ; often abundant. 



2. E. vaseyi C. & R. Coyote-thistle. Plants growing in shallow vernal 

 pools and showing two vegetative stages: earliest leaves all fistulous, jointed, 

 and radical, disappearing with the drying up of the pools and succeeded by 

 leafy stems; stems stout, erect, more or less branching, commonly 8 to 13 in. 

 (or sometimes 2 ft.) high; lower leaves narrowly oblanceolate, spinulose, 

 somewhat incised or bearing small lanceolate lobes below, 4 to 8 in. long, the 

 upper much shorter; bracts spinose, spinulose toward the base, 6 to 10 lines 

 long, much surpassing the bractlets; bractlets surpassing the flowers, similar; 

 fruit with abruptly cuspidate calyx-lobes longer than the short styles. 



Low places in fields, Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and west to 

 Monterey Co. May-June. 



3. E. jepsonii C. & R. Button-thistle. Plants growing in shallow 

 vernal pools, the earliest leaves all fistulous and radical, jointed at intervals (^ 

 to 2 in.), y. 2 to l 1 ^ ft. long; fistulous leaves disappearing with the drying 

 up of the pools and leafy stems arising; stems slender, freely branching, 

 1^4 to 1% ft. high; leaves oblanceolate, spinulose, sometimes incised, narrowed 

 at base to a slender spinulose petiole; heads 1% to 3 or 4 lines broad, sur- 

 passed by the bracts; bracts about 5 to 10 lines long, with few short bristles 

 at base ; bractlets with a broad scarious margin at base, not spinulose ; calyx- 

 lobes oblong or lanceolate, cuspidate, much shorter than the long styles. — (E. 

 calif ornicum Jepson.) 



Low places in valley fields and flats in the hills: Alameda and Napa 

 cos., and north and south in the Coast Ranges. 



4. E. articulatum Hook. Blue-thistle. Erect, sparingly branched above, 

 2 to 3 ft. high; herbage with a strong disagreeable odor; lower leaves fistulous, 

 elongated, jointed; upper leaves sometimes opposite; heads ovoid, 4 to 7 

 lines high; bracts narrowly linear, elongated, more or less spinulose-serrate ; 

 bractlets blue, lanceolate, entire, more or less scarious-margined ; calyx-lobes 

 bluish, lanceolate, equaled by the styles. 



Suisun Marshes, lowlands along sloughs of the lower Sacramento River and 

 north to Oregon and Idaho. A bee-plant; "in western Sacramento Co. bees 

 will gather 100 pounds to the hive this fall season." — M. C. Richter, 1910. 



4. SANICULA L. Snake-root. 

 Glabrous perennials with naked or few-leaved stems, usually much-divided 

 leaves, and irregularly compound few-rayed umbels. Involucres of leaf -like 

 toothed bracts. Involucels of small usually entire bractlets. Flowers greenish, 

 yellow or purple, of two sorts, perfect (fertile) and staminate (sterile), both 

 kind in the same umbellet, the staminate often pediceled. Umbellets capitate 

 and here called heads. Calyx-teeth slightly foliaceous, persistent. Fruit 

 subglobose or obovoid, without ribs, densely covered with tubercles which end 

 in hooked prickles. Oil-tubes many and irregularly distributed. (Diminutive 

 form, derived from Latin sanere, to heal, certain species used in medicine.) 



A. Fruit pediceled or stipitate; leaves palmately lobed or divided; stem or stems from 



a stoutish taproot. 



Bractlets conspicuous, much exceeding the heads; plants prostrate or decumbent 



1. .S. arctopoides. 

 Bractlets inconspicuous, not exceeding the heads; plants erect .,..,2. .$". mensiesii. 



