Part 15

A shrub 4—20 feet high with brown bark. Leaves more or less broadly ovate, 2—3 inches long, acute, rounded or slightly heart-shaped at the base, acutely doubly toothed, light green and smooth on both sides or slightly hairy. Staminate catkins slender, drooping, 1—2 inches long; fruiting cones erect, ½ an inch or less long.

In moist places and thickets and stream banks at the higher elevations throughout the region, very abundant in the Selkirks.

LORANTHACEÆ

Mistletoe Family

Parasitic herbs growing on woody plants and absorbing their food from the host plant through specialised roots; leaves opposite, frequently reduced to scales; flowers diœcious or monœcious, regular; in terminal or axillary clusters.

Greenish-yellow or brownish, smooth, fleshy; stems rather slender, numerous, and tufted, forked or branched into 4-angled jointed branches. Leaves reduced to opposite scales at the joints. Flowers very small, the staminate and pistillate on separate plants; staminate plants 2—4 inches long, with the flowers on terminal peduncle-like joints; pistillate plants much smaller and darker coloured; berries ovate, purplish-brown, ⅙ of an inch long.

Throughout the Rockies, parasitic on Pinus Murrayana; locally abundant, appearing in midsummer.

SANTALACEÆ

Sandalwood Family

Low herbs parasitic on the roots of other plants, with entire leaves and perfect, greenish flowers, either terminal or axillary; calyx 3—6-lobed; petals wanting; stamens as many as the calyx lobes and inserted near their bases or opposite them upon the disc; fruit in the only genus represented in the region, drupe-like, crowned by the persistent style.

Stem slender and leafy, 6—12 inches tall, pale and glaucous. Leaves linear or linear-lanceolate, acute or the lowest of those of the stem, oblong-elliptic. Flowers small, less than ¼ of an inch high with short pedicels, clustered at the summit of the stems, calyx purplish or sometimes nearly white; fruit ovoid-oblong, nearly half an inch high and crowned by the very short upper portion of the calyx tube.

On dry hillsides throughout the Rockies; flowering during June.

Stem slender, usually quite simple, 4—12 inches high. Leaves thin, oval, obtuse or rounded at the apex, narrowed at the base, short-petioled ½—1½ inches long, nearly half as broad, yellowish or purplish-green when young, becoming bright green or often variegated with age. Flowers small, less than ¼ of an inch broad; purplish-green, in axillary clusters of 1—5 flowers; drupe globose-oblong, ¼ of an inch in diameter, bright red when ripe.

Throughout the Rockies in moist ground and shaded mossy places and borders of woods, flowering in June. While inconspicuous early in the season, in midsummer it is apt to be quite showy on account of the striking, golden yellow veining of the otherwise green leaves; this condition is due to a fungoid or other disease of the plant.

POLYGONACEÆ

Buckwheat Family

Herbs and twining vines with alternate or sometimes opposite or whorled leaves, jointed stems and usually sheathing united stipules; flowers small, regular, perfect, monœcious, diœcious or polygamous; petals none, calyx 2—6-parted, the segments more or less folded over each other, sometimes petal-like; stamens 2—9 dilated at the base and distinct or united into a ring; ovary superior, one-celled with a solitary ovule.

Flowers not involucrate; stipules sheathing. Leaves reniform, sepals 4. =Oxyria.= Leaves not reniform; sepals 6. Sepals unequal; stigmas tufted. =Rumex.= Sepals equal; stigmas capitate. =Polygonum.= Flowers involucrate, many; stipules wanting. =Eriogonum.=

Stems 2 inches to a foot high, scape-like and leafless, from a large chaffy rootstock. Leaves basal on long petioles, reniform or orbicular ½—2 inches wide with a wavy margin, sometimes notched at the apex. Racemes 2—3 inches or more long, of many small flowers on slender pedicels; crimson or pinkish and showy in fruit.

Frequent at the higher altitudes throughout the region in moist grounds and beside streams, flowering in June.

Stems a foot or more high, smooth. Leaves oblong, hastate or ovate-sagittate, 1—4 inches long, acute, the basal few and long petioled, stem leaves sessile, the acute auricles entire. Flowers, diœcious, minute, crowded in a slender head 3—6 inches long, yellowish-green tinged with red.

In moist open ground at the higher elevations, more or less frequent throughout the Rockies, flowering in midsummer.

Smooth, pale green, erect, and spreading, 1—3 feet high. Leaves lanceolate, acute or acuminate at both ends, petioled. Flowers small greenish-white in erect or reflexed racemes, dense in fruit, interrupted below; wings of the fruit triangular-ovate, with a large ovoid tubercle.

Frequent throughout the Rockies at the lower altitudes; flowering in summer.

Smooth, with a corm-like rootstock; stems solitary or clustered, 2—10 inches high. Basal leaves lanceolate or oblong. 1—8 inches long, rather acute, cordate at the base on long petioles; stem leaves narrowly lanceolate or linear, upper sessile with revolute margins. Flowers in a dense terminal raceme several inches long; rose-coloured or white; stamens exserted; small bulblets frequently developed among the flowers, which later produce leaves and young plants.

Frequent in moist sandy soil and river banks throughout the Rockies, flowering in June and July.

Several small weedy species of the genus are also found through the region but are not sufficiently striking to be here described.

Stems depressed, much branched, prostrate and matted at the base. Leaves oblong to ovate-spatulate, 1—2 inches long, on slender petioles, smooth and green above, white-woolly beneath. Scape-like peduncles, erect, 8—14 inches high, with a simple, large umbel of 8—12 rays subtended by a whorl of leaves. Flowers ⅛—¼ of an inch high, cream-coloured or nearly pure white, and tinged with rosy pink especially in age.