There are many species, and even genera, and their determination is beset with serious difficulties. It requires endless study and patience to disentangle the facts about any one of them. They are comprised under several genera, _Krynitzkia_, _Plagiobothrys_, _Eritrichium_, _Piptocalyx_, etc. Some have fragrant flowers and some have not. Children of the south call them "pop-corn flowers."
_Whipplea modesta_, Torr. Saxifrage Family.
Slender, diffuse, hairy undershrubs. _Leaves._--Opposite; short-petioled; ovate; toothed or entire; an inch or less long; three-nerved. _Flowers._--White; barely three lines across; in small terminal clusters. _Calyx._--White; five-cleft. _Petals._--Five. _Stamens._--Usually ten. Filaments awl-shaped. _Ovary._--Three- to five-celled, globose. Styles of the same number. _Hab._--Coast Ranges from Monterey to Mendocino County.
Under the redwoods, or in moist cañons in their vicinity, may be found this pretty undershrub trailing over banks or brushwood. In April its exquisite little clusters of pure white flowers, with a pleasant fragrance, make their appearance, and the plants have then been sometimes mistaken for a species of _Ceanothus_.
_Tellima affinis_, Bolander. Saxifrage Family.
_Stems._--Slender; six to twenty inches high. _Root-leaves._--Round-reniform; scalloped; rarely an inch across. _Stem-leaves._--Three to five; ternately cleft; variously toothed. _Flowers._--White; in a loose raceme; nine lines across. _Calyx._--Small; campanulate; five-toothed. _Petals._--Five; wedge-shaped, with three acute lobes. _Stamens._--Ten. Filaments very short. _Ovary._--One-celled. Styles, three, short, stout. Stigmas, capitate. _Hab._--Shady places almost throughout the State.
"Star of Bethlehem" is the common name by which many of our children know this fragile flower. Its slender stems rise from many a mossy bank, upbearing their few delicately slashed, pure-white stars, which seem to shed a gentle radiance about them upon the woodland scene.
[Illustration WHIPPLEA--_Whipplea modesta._]
_Eriogonum fasciculatum_, Bentham. Buckwheat Family.
Shrubby; very leafy. _Leaves._--Alternate; nearly sessile; narrowly oblanceolate; acute; tomentose beneath; glabrous above; three to nine lines long; much fascicled. _Flowers._--White or pinkish; in densely crowded compound clusters; several perianths contained in the involucres. _Involucres._--Campanulate; five- or six-nerved and toothed; two lines high. _Perianth._--Minute; of six nearly equal segments. (See _Eriogonum umbellatum_.) _Hab._--Santa Barbara and southward; east to Arizona.