PLUMBAGINACEJS. 



:*77 



Very common on low slopes of the hills and ascending to the higher 

 Coast Range ridges: Santa Clara Co.; Oakland Hills; Solano Co.; 

 Napa Valley; Ukiah, and northward into Oregon. Also in the 

 Sierra Nevada at lower altitudes. Feh.-Apr. The very short peren- 

 nial caudex produces elongated fleshy bulhlets which are borne on 

 the sides, often in great quantity; these are cast off in the autumn 

 and in the next season give rise to a single leaf. Mr. Carl Purdy 

 informs us that these individuals probably do not flower until two 

 more seasons have passed. The bulblets are white and suggestive of 

 the "rice-grain " bulblets of the Rice-root Lily (Fritillaria mutica). 



2. D. patulum Greene. Shooting Star. Similar to the preced- 

 ing but very low, only 3 or 4 in. high and the roots much more rigid; 

 corolla white, pale cream-color or rarely pinkish; anthers 1 line long; 

 capsule short-oblong or subglobose, circumscissile near the summit. 



Subsaline plains of the Lower Sacramento Valley (Vanden Station, 

 eastward to Main Prairie) and southward to the Livermore Valley. 

 Mar. The var. gracile Greene, from Loma Prieta, has narrower 

 leaves and "elegantly twisted'' petals. The purple-flowered var. 

 Bern alium Greene, from Bernal Heights, San Francisco, is in all 

 likelihood one of the intermediate forms between this and the preced- 

 ing species, as also the whitish-flowered plants of the Oakland Hills. 



Primula suffrutkscens Gray. Sierra Primrose. General habit 

 of Dodecatheon; leaves thickly crowded on creeping stems, cuneate- 

 spatulate. toothed at apex; scape 2 to 4 in. long, bearing an umbel of 

 •several flowers; corolla red, its tube surpassing the calyx, its limb 

 in. broad with spreading emarginate or obeordate lobes. — Crevices of 

 rocks, High Sierras. 



79. PLUMBAGINACE/E. Thrift Family. 



Maritime acauleseent herbs with commonly hard or coriaceous 

 stems and leaves. Flowers regular, perfect, 5-mcrous throughout. 

 Calyx tubular or funnelform, plaited. Petals with long claws barely 

 united into a ring at base. Stamens opposite the petals, adnate to 

 the base of the claw. Ovary superior, 5-angled at summit, containing 

 a single ovule which hangs from an elongated funiculus arising from 

 the base of the cell. Fruit a utricle or achene, borne in the base of 

 the persistent calyx. Seed with endosperm; embryo straight. 



Leaves narrowly linear; inflorescence head-like 1. Armeria. 



Leaves broad; inflorescence paniculate 2. Statice. 



1. ARMERIA Willd, Thrift. 

 Acauleseent perennials with a close tuft of narrowly linear sedge- 

 like leaves. Scape naked, terminating in a globose head of flowers. 

 Heads composed of numerous crowded clusters, each cluster subtended 

 by a scarious bract, the outer bracts forming an involucre, the two 

 outermost united and forming a reversed sheath to the summit of the 

 scape. Flowers in a cluster pediceled or subsessile, subtended by 

 bractlets. Calyx scarious. funnelform. Corolla of 6 apparently die- 



