VITACILK. 



259 



with 3 large wrinkled horns on each valve and 3 intermediate crests, 

 3 to 4 lines long. 



Sierra Nevada, where it is common, often extensively covering the 

 ground in the Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa) woods; Mt. Shasta; 

 southward in the north Coast Ranges through the Yallo Bally Moun- 

 tains and Snow Mountain, Lake Co., to Cobb Mountain where it 

 passes into the following. 



Var. divergens Brandegee (C. divergens Parry). Low scrambling 

 shrub with horizontally spreading, trailing or almost procumbent 

 branches; leaves more dentate-spinose than in the type, almost sessile, 

 J to £ in. long; flowers blue; capsules about 3 lines in diameter, with 

 the horns more lateral. — Mt. St. Helena; Sonoma; Marin Co.; Santa 

 Cruz Co. May. 



56. VITACE/E. Vine Family. 



Woody plants, mostly climbing by tendrils. Leaves in ours simple, 

 alternate. Flowers small, regular, greenish or whitish, in a com- 

 pound thyrse. Calyx minute, the limb mostly obsolete and truncate. 

 Petals 4 or 5, valvate, caducous or early deciduous, the stamens as 

 many and opposite them. Fruit a 2-celled berry. Seeds with a thick 

 and bony testa. Embryo minute, in a tough endosperm. 



1. VITIS L. Grape. 



Leaves opposite the tendrils or flower clusters. Tendrils at least 

 once branched. Calyx-tube filled with the disk, which bears the 

 stamens and petals. Ovules 2 in each cell. (Classical Latin name.) 



1. V. Californica Benth. California Wild Grape. Leaves 

 roundish, tomentose, especially beneath, the tomentum in age floccu- 

 lent, 2 to 5^ in. broad, coarsely or minutely dentate, cordate at base 

 with open or closed sinus, slightly or not at all lobed, or frequently 

 with a sinuately 3 to 5-lobed leaf at the next node above or below an 

 unlobed one; fruit purple, with a bloom, 3 or 4 lines in diameter. 



Along streams throughout the Coast Ranges, Sacramento and San 

 Joaquin Valleys, and Sierra Foothills. Climbing trees, especially Oaks 

 and Cottonwoods, and frequently killing such by covering them with 

 its drapery of leaves. Very fragrant at flowering time (May-June) 

 with a pleasant sweet odor. 



57. THYMEL/EACEXE. Mezereum Family. 



Ours shrubs w r ith simple entire alternate leaves and no stipules. 

 Flowers perfect, with corolla-like 4-cleft calyx. Stamens inserted 

 upon the calyx, twice as many as its lobes. Corolla none. Ovary 

 superior, 1-celled; ovule 1, pendulous. 



1. DIRCA L. Leatherwood. 

 Deciduous shrubs with perfect flowers in fascicles from mixed buds, 

 i. e. } buds containing flowers and leaves. Scales of the bud yellow- 



