FLOWERING PLANTS AND FERNS OF ARIZONA 299 



7. Talinum aurantiacum Engelm., Boston Jour. Nat. Hist. 6: 153. 



1850. 



Cochise, Santa Cruz, and Pima Counties, 4,000 to 5.000 feet, plains 

 and rocky slopes, often among grasses, July to September. Western 

 Texas to southern Arizona and northern Mexico. 



Arizona's largest-flowered and showiest species. Indians in Arizona 

 cooked and ate the roots. 



2. CALANDRINIA. Rockpurslaxe 



Small somewhat flesh} 7 annual herbs; leaves alternate; inflorescence 

 umbellike or racemiform; sepals 2, persistent; petals 3 to 7; style 

 3-cleft; capsule longitudinally dehiscent. 



Key to the species 



1. Leaf blades oblong-spatulate, very obtuse; flowers in rather compact, umbel- 

 like, lateral and terminal clusters; sepals glabrous; petals white, shorter 

 than the sepals; capsules obtuse 1. C. ambigua. 



1. Leaf blades narrowly to rather broadly lanceolate or oblanceolate, often sub- 

 rhombic, acutish or obtuse; flowers in loose, leafy terminal racemes; sepals 

 usually more or less pubescent with thick, white hairs; petals rose red 

 (exceptionally white), mostly longer than the sepals; capsules acuminate. 



2. C. CILIATA. 



1. Calandrinia ambigua (S. Wats.) Howell, Erythea 1: 34. 1893. 



Claytonia ambigua S. Wats.. Amer. Acad. Arts and Sci. Proc 

 17: 365. 1882. 



Near Dome, Yuma County {Harrison and Peebles 5056), in sandy 

 soil, March. Deserts of southwestern Arizona and southeastern 

 California. 



2. Calandrinia ciliata (Ruiz and Pavon) DC, Prodr. 3: 359. 1828. 



Talinum ciliatum Ruiz and Pavon, Fl. Peruv. Prodr. 65. 1794. 

 Calandrinia arizonica Rydb., North Amer. Fl. 21: 292. 1932. 



Gila, Pinal, Maricopa, and Pima Counties, 1,500 to 4,000 feet, 

 February to April. British Columbia to Baja California and Arizona ; 

 South America. 



Redmaids, one of the common early spring wild flowers of the 

 southern deserts. The form occurring in Arizona is var. mensiesii 

 (Hook.) Macbride (Talinum menziesii Hook., Calandrinia caulescens 

 var. menziesii A. Gray) . 



3. LEWISIA 



Plants small, perennial, somewhat fleshy, scapose, with thick roots; 

 leaves mostly basal, narrow; flowers solitary, rather showy; sepals 2, 

 separate; petals pink or white. 



The Arizona species belong to the subgenus Oreobroma and differ 

 considerably from the type of the genus (L. rediviva Pursh), bitterroot, 

 the State flower of Montana, The roots of this species (and possibly 

 of those occurring in Arizona) were eaten by the Indians. 



Key to the species 



1. Bracts closely investing the flower, ovate-lanceolate, narrower than the broadly 

 ovate entire sepals, simulating an outer pair of sepals; petals whitish, 12 

 to 20 mm. long 1. L. brachycai.yx. 



1. Bracts remote from the flower; sepals suborbicular, glandular-dentate at the 

 rounded or truncate apex; petals pink or white, 8 to 10 mm. long. 



2. L. PYGMAEA. 



