196 



RANUNCULACEvE. 



2. D. variegatum T. <& G. Sacramento Larkspur. Com- 

 monly about lj to 1 £ ft. high, more or less hispidulous toward the base; 

 leaves dissected into oblong mostly obtusish mucronulate diverging 

 segments; raceme few (about 1 to 10)-flowered, loose, with ascending 

 or spreading pedicels usually 1 in. long or more, the lower pedicels 

 sometimes much elongated; sepals deep but bright blue, 7 to 

 12 lines long; spur stoutish, the tip often slightly curved; lower 

 petals large, elliptic or roundish, commonly colored like the sepals; 

 upper petals obliquely oblong, whitish; capsule oblong, rather turgid, 7 

 to 10 lines long, hispid-pubescent; seeds with brownish-winged angles. 



Monterey, north to Contra Costa Co., Napa Valley, and the upper 

 Sacramento Valley. Apr. The var. apiculatum Greene, has many 

 flowers on shorter pedicels in a compact cylindrical raceme. — Lower 

 Sacramento Valley, especially low foothills bordering the Coast 

 Ranges. 



3. D. hesperium Gray. Western Larkspur. Root a cluster 

 of short thickened fibers, or of a single much thickened and some- 

 what elongated woody root; stems and leaves with a short more or 

 less appressed pubescence, commonly simple, \h to 2 J ft. high; leaves 

 2 to 3 times palmately cleft into oblong or linear spreading segments; 

 raceme rather dense, virgate, G 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 sometimes 7 lines long, pubescent; seeds wing- 

 margined. 



Dry ground in open places, flowering at the beginning of the dry 

 season, last of May or in June. Especially common in the interior 

 and in the inner Coast Ranges, less frequent near the sea: Vacaville; 

 TNI t. Tamalpais; Berkeley; San Mateo Co.; Coyote Creek (south of 

 San Jose). Typically the single stem terminates in an elongated 

 cylindric raceme. The lower flowers of the inflorescence are some- 

 times somewhat remote from those of the raceme proper and on 

 longer stalks, solitary, or 2 together, showing a tendency to become 

 subpaniculate below. Further, late rains sometimes induce lateral 

 flowering branches: plants from Forest Grove, Santa Cruz Mountains, 

 above Los Gatos, June, 1896, had solitary strictly virgate main stems, 

 about 2 ft. high, which had passed out of flower and fruited; from the 

 axils of the radical and subradical leaves flowering branches were later 

 produced. 



D. recur vatum Greene has the linear-oblong sepals conspicuously 

 recurved; it belongs to the low-lying lands along the San Joaquin 

 and is at present insufficiently known. 



4. D. decorum F. & M. Perfectly glabrous, except a slight 

 pubescence on the branchlets and sometimes on the pedicels; radical 

 and subradical leaves thick, often somewhat succulent, roundish in 

 outline, 3 to 5-parted into broadly cuneate segments, 1 to 1} in. long; 

 segments subentire, or 3-cleft or -lobed, the lobes acute or obtuse; 



