Not a large family, widely distributed in warm and tropical regions;
ours are herbs or shrubs, with opposite or alternate, compound leaves,
with stipules and toothless leaflets; flowers complete, usually with
five sepals and five petals, and usually twice the number of stamens,
with swinging anthers, alternate stamens sometimes longer, filaments
often with a small scale near the middle; ovary superior, usually
surrounded at the base by a disk; style one, with a five- to ten-lobed
stigma; fruit dry.
There are several kinds of Covillea.
[Sidenote: =Creosote-bush, Hediondilla=
_Covíllea glutinòsa (Larrea Mexicana)_
=Yellow
All seasons
Southwest=]
A graceful, evergreen shrub, common in arid regions and a
characteristic feature of the desert landscape, filling the air with
its very strong, peculiar odor. It is from three to ten feet high,
with many little branches, with blackish knots at the joints, clothed
with sticky, dull yellowish-green foliage, the thickish, resinous
leaflets very small, in pairs, with almost no leaf-stalk, and uneven at
base. The pretty flowers are nearly an inch across, with bright yellow
petals, with claws, and silky, greenish-yellow sepals which soon drop
off. The filaments are broadened below into wings and have a scale on
the inner side. The ovary is covered with pale, silky hairs, so that
the older flowers have a silky tuft in the center, and becomes a round,
densely hairy fruit, with a short stalk, tipped with the slender style.
These little white, silky balls of down are very conspicuous and, as
they are mingled with yellow flowers, the bush has an odd and pretty
effect of being spotted all over with yellow and white.
[Illustration: Creosote-bush--Covillea glutinosa.