146 



MYRICACE2E. 



6-lobed; stamens 8 to 40. Pistillate aments on terminal peduncle of 

 the same season; calyx 4-lobed; ovary inferior, 1 -eel led. Nut divided 

 internally by one true and several false partitions into several incom- 

 plete compartments, the seed so lobed as to fit the irregularities of 

 the cavity. (From Jovis and glans, the nut of Jove.) 



1. J. California Wats. California Walnut. Tree 30 to 50 

 ft. high; leaves 6 to 9 in. long; leaflets 11 to 15, oblong-lanceolate, 

 serrate; staminate aments often in pairs, 3 to 5 in. long; stamens 30 

 to 40, anthers yellow, the connective bifid at the apex; fruit globose, 

 f to 1 in. in diameter. 



Region of the Lower Sacramento and of the valleys about the 

 northwestern base of Mt. Diablo, southward to the Sierra Santa 

 Monica. 



19. MYRICACE/E. Sweet-gale Family. 



"Shrubs with fragrant alternate simple leaves, without stipules, 

 and monoecious or dioecious flowers in oblong or cylindrical aments. 

 Flowers solitary and sessile in the axils of scaly bracts; perianth none. 

 Staminate flower with 4 to 16 stamens. Pistillate flower with a 

 1-celled. 1-ovuled ovary with 2 sessile filiform stigmas, surrounded at 

 base by 2 to 4 small scales or bractlets. Cotyledons fleshy. 



1. MYRICA L. Bay Berry. 



The only genus. (Name from the Greek murike, the ancient name 

 of the Tamarisk.) 



1. M. Californica Cham. Wax Myrtle. Thickly-branched 

 evergreen shrub, or small tree, 8 to 14 ft. high; leaves thick, glabrous, 

 oblong, or oblanceolate-oblong, tapering above to an acute apex, nar- 

 rowed below to a petiole, 2| to 5 in. long, remotely serrate, or almost 

 entire; flowers monoecious; pistillate aments in the axils of the upper 

 leaves, 3 to 5 lines long; staminate aments below, sometimes as much 

 as 1 in. long; androgynous aments often occur between, with the 

 staminate flowers at the base; staminate flower consisting of 7 or 

 10 to 16 stamens, united by their filaments into a cluster longer than 

 the scale of the anient; bractlets 2, one on each side of the cluster at 

 base, narrowly oblong, hairy at apex; ovary ovate with 2 bright-red 

 exserted styles; fruit globose, brownish-purple, covered with a coat 

 of whitish wax, 2 lines in diameter, the bractlets at the base minute. 



Sand-dunes, moist hillsides, or rocky declivities near the ocean, 

 from Santa Monica northward, along the entire California coast: 

 San Francisco, where first collected by Chamisso; Oakland Hills; 

 Tiburon; Bolinas Bay. 



Myrica H art w eg i Wats., Sweet Bay, is a deciduous shrub of 

 the Sierra Nevada, with dioecious flowers; stamens 3 or 4, shorter 

 than the bract; bractlets exceeding the sub-compressed naked fruit. 



20. URTICACE/E. Nettle Family. 



Ours herbs with stinging hairs and stipulate simple leaves. Flowers 



