254 



RHAMNACEiE. 



L R. Californica Escb. Coffee Berry. Shrub, commonly 4 

 or 5 ft. high, evergreen in our district; one-year-old branchlets reddish 

 or brown; leaves oblong, obtuse or acute, mostly 1^ to 2 in. long; 

 flowers mostly perfect, 4 to 5-merous, on short pedicels, in umbellate 

 clusters, the clusters pedurcled; calyx 2 to 2\ lines broad; its lobes 

 triangular-lanceolate; petals minute, cucullate, deeply emarginate; 

 fruit a black berry, globose or oval, 8 to 4 lines in diameter. 



Common everywhere in the Coast llanges and at low altitudes in 

 the Sierras. June-July. Fr. Sept.-Oct. 



Var. tomentella Brew. & Wats. Twigs tomentose, reddish; 

 leaves yellow- or white-tomentose beneath; peduncles commonly 

 exceeding the petioles. — Santa Cruz Mountains; Mt. Hamilton; 

 Sierra Foothills and eastward. 



2. R. Purshiana DC. Cascara Sagrada. Small tree; leaves 

 thinnish, deciduous, elliptic-oblong, obtuse or slightly cordate at base, 

 obtuse or abruptly blunt-pointed at apex, serrulate, mostly 3 to 6 in. 

 long; petioles tomentulous; flowers 5-merous; carpels 3. 



Point Reyes acc to Davy; scarcely known in our region, more 

 common in northern California. 



3. R. crocea Nutt. Evergreen and glabrous low shrub \ to 2 or 

 3 ft. high, the branches and branchlets slender, flexible and rather 

 long; leaves often fascicled, rather narrowly elliptic, 1 to 4 lines long, 

 serrulate, green above, yellowish beneath, distinctly petioled but the 

 petioles often less than \ "line long; flowers apetalous, mostly polyga- 

 mous; sepals and stamens 4; fruit 2 or 3 lines long, red. 



Mayacamas Mountains (east of Napa Valley) and southward near 

 the coast: Oakland, etc. Feb. -May. 



Var. ilicifolia Greene (R. ilicifolia Kellogg). Somewhat arbo- 

 rescent with a distinct trunk, or the stems several and clustered, 5 to 

 10 ft. high; branchlets short, rigid and rather stout; leaves oval, 

 firm-coriaceous, green above, yellowish brown or golden beneath, 

 larger than in the type (7 to 10 lines long), spinulose-dentate; sepals 

 and stamens frequently 5; fruit bright red, ovoid, 2\ lines long. — 

 Inner Coast Ranges (Miller Canon, Vaca Mountains, but rare):' 

 common in Mitchell Canon, Mt. Diablo; well known southward. 

 Fruiting in Sept. 



2. CEANOTHUS L. Mountain Lilac. 

 Shrubs or small trees, with petioled leaves, the branchlets often 

 divaricate and rigid, sometimes spinescent, and the small but showy 

 flowers in thyrses or cymes. Calyx 5-lobed, the lobes acute, incurved; 

 the lower part adnate with the thick disk to the lower part of the 

 3-celled ovary. Petals 5, hooded by the inflexion of the acuminate 

 apex, and with lony; claws. Stamens 5, filaments filiform, long- 

 exserted. Style 3-cleft. Fruit subglobose, 3-lobed, becoming dry 

 and separating into its 3 carpels, these elastically dehiscent along the 

 inner edge and dispersing the seeds. Seeds obovate, convex on the 

 back. (Creek Keanothus, name used by Dioscorides to designate 

 sonic spiny plant, applied to this genus of American plants, which 



