Leaves.—Six to eighteen lines across; smooth. Flowers.—White, pink, or purple. Calyx.—Deeply five-parted. Corolla.—Funnel-form; five-lobed; four lines long. Stamens.—Five. Ovary.—Two-celled. Hab.—Coast Ranges, from Santa Cruz northward.
In appearance these delicate herbs resemble the saxifrages, and they affect much the same sort of places, decking mossy banks and stream borders with their beautiful scalloped leaves and small white flowers.
The genus was named in honor of Nicholas Romanzoff, a Russian nobleman, who, by his munificence, enabled some noted botanists to visit this coast early in the century.
[ MIST-MAIDENS—Romanzoffia Sitchensis.]
![[ MIST-MAIDENS—Romanzoffia Sitchensis.]](#3624944100741987669_f009.png.id-6328450028585170679.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
STRAWBERRY CACTUS.
CALIFORNIAN FISH-HOOK CACTUS. LLAVINA.
Mamillaria Goodridgii, Scheer. Cactus Family.
Oval, fleshy, leafless plants; mostly single, though sometimes clustered; three to five inches long; covered with prominences or tubercles. Tubercles.—Each bearing a flat rosette of short, whitish spines, with an erect, dark, fish-hook-like central one. Flowers.—Small; greenish-white. Outer Sepals.—Fringed. Petals.—About eight; awned. Stamens.—Numerous. Ovary.—One-celled. Stigmas five or six. Fruit.—Scarlet; an inch long. Hab.—San Diego and neighboring islands, and southward.
The dry hill-slopes about San Diego afford the most interesting field accessible to civilization, i.e. within our boundaries, for the gathering and study of the cacti.