_Purslane Family_
Fleshy herbaceous plants, with regular perfect, unsymmetrical flowers;
sepals commonly 2; petals 4 or 5, folded together, stamens equal in
number to the petals or fewer.
[Sidenote: =Claytonia lanceolata= Pursh. _Spring Beauty._]
Stem 3—8 inches high from a round corm. Leaves oblong or lanceolate,
½—1½ inches long. Flowers nearly half an inch broad, few to several in
a loose head, on slender pedicels; petals notched at the end or almost
obcordate, white with pink veins.
One of the first plants to appear in spring on the edges of the snow
banks, throughout the region, from the lower altitudes up to the alpine
summits, flowering throughout the summer according to elevation and
condition of the snow.
[Illustration: Claytonia lanceolata Pursh. (½ Nat.) Spring Beauty.]
[Illustration: Claytonia parvifolia Moc. (½ Nat.) Small-Leaved Spring
Beauty.]
[Sidenote: =Claytonia parvifolia= Moc. _Small-leaved Spring Beauty._]
Stems 6—12 inches high, diffuse, ascending or somewhat reclined or
creeping, sometimes reduced to slender naked runners. Leaves fleshy,
rhombic-ovate, acute, about half an inch long, contracted at the base,
the upper a quarter of an inch long or less. Flowers few and racemose;
petals somewhat obcordate ¼ of an inch long, much surpassing the
rounded sepals, rose-colour varying to white; propagating freely by
bulblet-like offshoots in the axils of the stem leaves, as well as by
the usual method.
In wet stony places and in the gravelly beds of Alpine brooks, frequent
in the Selkirks, flowering in July.