A quaint little plant, only about three inches high, with a tuberous root, spreading, slanting stems, and smooth leaves, all from the root, with three, long, narrow leaflets; a reddish, stiff, papery scale sheathing the stem at base. The minute, white flowers form a cluster less than an inch across, without bracts, with a stout, ridged flower-stalk and composed of from two to ten smaller clusters, with small bracts; the anthers red. This grows in rich moist soil, in shady valleys, on mountain ridges; in the Wasatch Mountains, sometimes on the edge of the snow.
Turkey Peas—Orogenia linearifolia.
(fruit) Peucedanum Euryptera.
Pterýxia Califórnica (Cymópterus)
Yellow
Summer
Cal., Oreg.
Over a foot tall, with very pretty, dark green foliage and rather ugly, dull yellow flowers, in flat-topped clusters, three inches across. The leaves are in a cluster at the root, with long leaf-stalks sheathing at base, very finely cut and toothed, with stiffish points; the main flower-cluster without bracts, but the smaller clusters with narrow bracts.
Whisk-broom Parsley
Cogswéllia platycàrpa (Peucedanum simplex)
Yellow
Spring
Northwest and Utah
An odd-looking plant, for the foliage looks like pieces of a whisk-broom stuck in the ground. It is six to fourteen inches tall, with a thickish root and minute, sulphur-yellow flowers, forming a flat-topped cluster, about two inches across, without bracts, and composed of three to fifteen smaller clusters, with small bracts; usually only the outermost flowers of both the large and small clusters are fertile. The stem and leaves are stiff and sage-green, the root-leaves with broad leaf-stems, reddish and papery at base, sheathing the stem, and all the leaves cut into narrow divisions, not much thicker than pine needles, folded together so that they appear to be cylindrical. This grows on dry gravelly hills, at an altitude of from six to eight thousand feet.
Leptotaènia multífida (Ferula)
Yellowish-green
Spring, summer
Northwest, Nev., Utah, New Mex.
A fine, stout plant, about two feet tall, with a thick, spindle-shaped root and dark, rich-green, feathery foliage; the large leaves, over a foot long, appearing smooth but really imperceptibly downy, finely cut and lobed, with long, stout leaf-stalks; the small flowers, yellowish-green or bronze-color, in flat-topped clusters, two or three inches across, with few or no bracts, with tall, stout flower-stalks, and composed of about eighteen, small clusters, forming round knobs, with many bracts, on slender pedicels of various lengths. This grows in rich soil and is conspicuous on account of its size and foliage.
