LAURACEiE. 



Along streams in canons of the Coast Ranges from Sonoma, Napa 

 Valley and Vacaville northward. Last of May-July; 



31. LAURACE/E. Laurel Family. 



Trees and shrubs, with alternate simple leaves and no stipules. 

 Flowers perfect, regular. Petals none. Anthers opening by uplifted 

 valves. Ovary simple and superior. Fruit a berry or drupe. 



1. UMBELLULARIA Nutt. 



Foliage highly aromatic, evergreen. Flowers in simple peduncu- 

 late umbels, covered in the bud by an involucre of caducous bracts, 

 each flower except the central one with a similar bract and sometimes 

 with two lateral bractlets at the base of the pedicel, the bract and 

 bractlets caducous. Sepals 6. Stamens 9, the three inner with a 

 stipitate orange-colored gland on each side of the filament at base and 

 alternating with scale-like staminodia; anthers 4-celled, 4-valved, the 

 three inner extrorse, the outer introrse. Ovary 1-celled, 1-ovuled, 

 with a single style. Fruit a subglobose or ovoid drupe. 



1. U. Californica Nutt. Mountain Laurel. Tree 20 to 30 ft. 

 high or more with a dense crown of erect slender branches; leaves 

 oblong, entire, tapering rather more to the apex than to the base, 4 

 in. long, on petioles 2 to 3 lines long; peduncles in the terminal 

 axils, 4 to 7 lines long; umbels 4 to 9-flowered, the bracts orbicular to 

 ovate; sepals 1£ lines long, the stamens included and borne on their 

 united base; pedicels in flower 2 or 3 lines long, in fruit somewhat 

 elongated and noticeably turbinate-thickened beneath the drupe; 

 drupe 1 in. long, greenish and mottled with white dots before matu- 

 rity, changing into light red or aging into brown-purple. 



Throughout California, mainly along mountain streams, more 

 rarely in the valleys. The Mountain Laurel is usually a good-sized 

 tree in the canons, but it ascends the most rocky slopes or declivities 

 and appears in a reduced form at considerable elevation as bush-like 

 clumps; or again, it may be seen in the hills on abrupt north slopes, 

 forming dense thickets of limited area, with sapling-like stems and 

 presenting a remarkably even surface above as if clipped like a garden 

 hedge. The leaves may persist 4 or 5 years; the new shoots begin to 

 grow in June. It is found in flower from Dec. to Mar. The drupes 

 fall in Nov. or Dec; scattered over the ground beneath the trees they 

 look not unlike nearly ripe olives. It is also called Bay Tree, Spice 

 Tree and (in the North Coast Ranges) Pepperwood. 



32. CERATOPHYLLACE>E. Hornwort Family. 



Aquatic submerged fragile herbs, with cylindric jointed stems and 

 whorled sessile exstipulate leaves cut into filiform divisions. Flowers 

 minute, axillary, monoecious, without perianth but surrounded by 

 an 8 to 12-cleft persistent involucre. Staminate flowers crowded, 

 of a single fleshy anther, dehiscing irregularly. Ovary superior, 



