Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Celastraceæ Staff-Tree Family

Reading edition

Shrubs with simple evergreen leaves, and regular perfect flowers, sepals, petals, and stamens each 4 in our species.

Pachystima myrsinites (Pursh) Raf. Mountain Lover.

Low evergreen shrub, densely branched or nearly simple, 1—3 feet high. Leaves opposite, smooth, ovate to oblong or lanceolate, cuneate at the base, the upper half serrate or serrulate ½—1 inch long on very short petioles. Flowers small in axillary cymes; petals 4, stamens 4, inserted at the edge of the broad disc.

In gravelly and stony situations extending from the Valley of the Columbia River at Beavermouth, westward throughout the Selkirks, the minute blossoms appearing in the latter part of May; a pretty but very variable shrub in habit and leaf form.

Illustration from Alpine flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Pachystima myrsinites (Pursh) Raf. (½ Nat.) Mountain Lover.

Viola adunca longipes (Nutt.) Rydb. (⅔ Nat.) Dog Violet.