Part 22

Stone-Crop Family

Fleshy smooth herbs with alternate leaves, and perfect flowers in terminal, oftentimes 1-sided cymes. Calyx 4—5-lobed; petals 4—5, distinct, stamens twice as many as the petals; carpels 4—5, styles short.

Perennial, tufted, smooth, flowering branches 3—7 inches long. Leaves alternate, crowded, sessile, linear ¼—½ an inch long, entire. Flowers bright yellow, nearly half an inch broad in a 5—7-forked, compact cyme, petals narrowly lanceolate, very acute.

Common throughout the Rockies in moist, gravelly or sandy soil, on river shores, and on rocky slopes, flowering in June and July.

PARNASSIACEÆ

Grass-of-Parnassus Family

Smooth bog-herbs with a rosette of basal leaves and generally one or a few alternate stem leaves and solitary, terminal flowers. Flowers perfect; calyx generally 5-lobed to near the base; petals 5; perfect stamens 5; staminodia (imperfect stamens) in clusters at the base of each petal; stigmas 4.

Leaves tufted at the base on petioles 2—6 inches long; blades reniform or broadly cordate, ¾—½ an inch wide, thin, smooth, with about 7 principal veins. Flowers ¾ of an inch or more broad on a scape 8—12 inches high with a small cordate clasping bract about the middle; sepals ¼ of an inch long, elliptic, obtuse; petals obovate, pure white, fringed at the base, staminodia united into 5 fleshy obovate scales.

Common throughout the region in springy places and damp mossy banks at the lower altitudes, flowering during July.

Leaves tufted at the base on short petioles, blades ovate with a cordate or rounded base ¾ of an inch long. Flowers solitary, on scapes 8 inches or more high with a large ovate bract below the middle; sepals lanceolate, acute, ¼ of an inch or more long, petals oval to elliptic only slightly larger than the sepals; staminodial scales with 7—9 gland-tipped filaments.

Throughout the Rockies in marshy ground and shaded river shores; flowering in June and early July.

Scapes slender, 4—12 inches high, usually bearing a clasping oval leaf at the middle. Basal leaves on slender petioles, oval or ovate, narrowed at the base, not cordate, ½—1 inch long. Flowers about ⅓ of an inch broad, sepals equalling or somewhat shorter than the elliptic sessile petals; staminodia 5—7 at the base of each petal.

In wet gravelly places at the lower altitudes throughout the Rockies; flowering in July.

Much smaller than the preceding species. Basal leaves few on petioles less than an inch long; blades broadly ovate, ½ an inch long. Flowers on slender scapes 2—4 inches high, without any bract; sepals oblong, about ¼ of an inch long, equalling or exceeding the elliptic or oval 3-veined petals; staminodia short with 3—5 slender filaments.

Throughout the Rockies at high altitudes on the gravelly borders of alpine ponds or brooks, a very diminutive species, flowering in July.

SAXIFRAGACEÆ

Saxifrage Family

Stemmed or stemless herbs with alternate or sometimes opposite or more frequently basal leaves; flowers perfect, racemose, cymose or paniculate; calyx 5-lobed or parted; petals 4 or 5, white, yellow or greenish or sometimes rose-coloured; stamens equal or twice the number of the petals; carpels 1—several, distinct or united.

Placentæ parietal. Flowers solitary and axillary; sepals 4; stamens 4—8. =Chrysosplenium.= Flowers in more or less elongated racemes. Flowers with 2 or 3 equal carpels. Flower-stalk axial from a bulbiferous rootstock. =Lithophragma.= Flower-stalk a lateral shoot from a stout scaly rootstock. Inflorescence racemose. Petals pinnately cut or pinnatifid. Base of the calyx campanulate deeper than the length of the sepals. =Tellima.=

Base of the calyx saucer-shaped, shallower than the length of the sepals. Ovary more than half superior; disc inconspicuous. =Mitella.= Ovary wholly inferior, covered with the prominent disc. =Pectiantia.=

Inflorescence paniculate. =Heuchera.=

Flowers with 2 very unequal carpels. =Tiarella.=

Placentæ axial. Base of the calyx well developed, at maturity longer than the sepals. Stamens 5, plant with short bulblet bearing rootstock. =Hemieva.= Stamens 10. Plants without caudices; only producing annual flowering stems. =Saxifraga.= Plants with perennial leafy caudices, often with offsets. =Muscaria.= Base of the calyx only slightly developed, unchanged at maturity. Leaves alternate, sometimes all basal. Plants stemless. Corolla regular, petals about equal in shape and length. =Micranthes.= Corolla irregular petals of different shape and length. =Spatularia.= Plants with stems. Carpels distinct; leaf-blades toothed. =Leptarrhena.= Carpels partially united; leaf-blades entire. =Leptasea.= Leaves opposite except sometimes on the flower-stalks. =Antiphylla.=

Perennial with a slender creeping rootstock; stems 1½—6 inches high, branched above. Leaves alternate, the lower ones on petioles 1—2 inches long; blades thick, reniform, ½ an inch or less wide, crenate with 3—5 broad teeth, shining above, paler beneath, upper ones larger and more or less wedge-shaped. Flowers in small clusters in the axils of the upper leaves; sepals 4; stamens 4 opposite the sepals.

In shaded damp ground in the wooded areas through the Rockies at an elevation of 5000 to 6000 feet, where it often forms dense green carpets, the inconspicuous little flowers coming into blossom in June.

Stems 4—12 inches high, slightly glandular-hairy, from a slender creeping rootstock with rosy bulblets. Leaves palmately divided to the base into 3—5 divisions, ½—1 inch long, twice ternately cleft into oblong or linear divisions; lower ones on petioles 1—2 inches long; stem leaves 1 or 2 similar, sessile. Flowers 3—8 in a slender raceme, base of the calyx and sepals ⅛ of an inch long; petals pure white, deeply 3—5 cut into narrowly oblong divisions.

On grassy slopes and gravelly places throughout the Rockies; flowering in June.

Flowering branches 1—2 feet high, with long rough hairs, glandular above. Leaves reniform or cordate, sparingly rough-hairy, round lobed, and toothed with broadly ovate teeth; 1½—4 inches broad on hairy petioles 4—8 inches long; stem leaves short-petioled with well developed stipules. Flowers numerous in an elongated raceme; sepals ovate ¼ of an inch long; petals white, purplish or pink with a pinnately cut blade; claws broadly wedge-shaped, ⅛ of an inch long, erect, blade spreading or reflexed with a rounded ovate body and tapering thread-like lobes.