Ceanothus, L. Buckthorn Family.
Shrubs or small trees, sometimes spinescent. Leaves.—Opposite or alternate; petioled; variously toothed or entire. Flowers.—Blue or white; small, usually not more than two or three lines across; borne in showy thyrsoid or cymose clusters. Calyx.—Petaloid; with short tube and five-cleft border, the lobes acute and connivent. Petals.—Five; long-clawed; hooded; inserted on the calyx-tube. Stamens.—Five; opposite the petals; long exserted. Ovary.—Three-lobed; three-celled. Style short; three-cleft. Fruit.—Dry; consisting of three dehiscent nutlets; sometimes crested.
The genus Ceanothus is mainly a Western one. Of its thirty or more species, two thirds are found in the region between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
In California we have about twenty species; and these all hybridize to such an extent, that often the determination of any given species is a very difficult matter. The genus reaches its culmination in the mountains of Santa Cruz County, where there are many beautiful species. Many of the species are commonly known as "California lilac."
Lupinus, Catullus. Pea Family.
Leaves.—Palmately divided, with from one to sixteen leaflets; stipules adnate; seldom conspicuous. Leaflets.—Entire; sessile. Flowers.—In terminal racemes, whorled or scattered. Calyx.—Deeply bilabiate; upper lip notched; lower usually entire, or occasionally three-toothed or cleft. Corolla.—Papilionaceous. Standard.—Broad, with sides reflexed. Wings.—Falcate; oblong; commonly slightly united at the tip in front of and inclosing the falcate, usually slender, pointed keel. Stamens.—With their filaments united in a tube; of two forms; five with longer and basifixed anthers; the alternate five with shorter and versatile ones. Pod.—Compressed; straight; two-valved. Style slender. Stigma bearded.
The Lupines are mostly plants of Western America. In fact, they are so abundant between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean that that territory is known among botanists as the "Lupine Region."
The species, which are very numerous, are difficult of determination, requiring very long technical descriptions, which cannot be given in a work like the present. For this reason we have been able to give but a few of the more easily recognized.
We have in California upwards of forty species. They are of little economic importance, although one or two species have been found very useful in the reclaiming of sand-dunes. Several species have been cultivated for ornament. The leaves are often beautiful and the flower-clusters showy.
The generic name is supposed to come from the Latin lupinus, a wolf, and to have been given because of the voracity evinced by the species in exhausting the soil.