1. FREMONTIA Torr.
A tree or shrub, with stellate pubescence and naked buds. Leaves broad-ovate, lobed, thick, prominently veined, usually rufous on the lower surface, persistent; stipules minute, deciduous. Flowers solitary, terminal or opposite the leaves, pedicellate, subtended by 3 or rarely 5 minute caducous bracts; calyx subcampanulate, hypogynous, deeply 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud, petaloid, yellow, spreading, obovate, often mucronate, 1′ long, the 3 outer a little smaller than the others, pubescent on the outer surface, with a hairy cavity at the base of the inner surface; corolla 0; stamens 5; filaments alternate with the sepals, united to the middle into a column; anthers oblong-linear, incurved at the ends, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary 5-celled, the cells opposite the sepals; style filiform, elongated, terminated by an acute undivided stigmatic point; ovules numerous in each cell, horizontal. Fruit an ovoid acuminate 4 or 5-valved loculicidally dehiscent capsule densely coated with long matted hairs, the inner surface of the cells villose-pubescent. Seeds oval; seed-coat crustaceous, puberulous, with a small fleshy marginal deciduous ariloid appendage on the chalaza; embryo straight, in thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons oblong, foliaceous, three or four times longer than the short radicle.
Fremontia, named in honor of John C. Frémont, the distinguished explorer of western North America, is represented by a single species.
1. [Fremontia californica] Torr. Slippery Elm.
Fremontodendron californicum Cov.
Leaves usually 3-lobed, rarely entire or sometimes 5—7-lobed, 1½′ in diameter; petioles stout, ½′—⅔′ in length. Flowers appearing in July in great profusion on short spur-like lateral branchlets. Fruit 1′ long; seeds very dark red-brown, about 3/16′ long.
A tree, 20°—30° high, with a short trunk 12′—14′ in diameter, stout rigid branches spreading almost at right angles, and stout terete branchlets thickly coated when they first appear with rufous pubescence, becoming glabrous and light red-brown; more often a low intricately branched shrub. Bark of the trunk rarely more than ¼′ thick, deeply furrowed, the dark red-brown surface broken into numerous short thick scales. Wood hard, heavy, close-grained, dark brown tinged with red, with thick lighter colored sapwood. The mucilaginous inner bark is sometimes used domestically in poultices.
Distribution. Lower slopes of the California mountains; western base of Mt. Shasta to the San Pedro Mártir Mountains, Lower California; nowhere common west of the Sierra Nevada, but of its largest size on their western foothills; most abundant east of the Sierra Nevada in the region of the Mohave Desert, growing as a low shrub and sometimes forming thickets several acres in extent.
Occasionally cultivated in western and southern Europe as an ornamental plant.