more freely there than in the open. It forms its inflorescence 
and partially develops it in autumn, but the flowers do not 
expand until the following May. They are of a dull 
yellowish white and not particularly ornamental. The 
fruits turn red in September, and the plant then acquires 
its greatest beauty; finally the fruits turn black. 
V. rhytidophyllum requires a rich loamy soil and appears 
to thrive anywhere except on a bleak, wind-swept spot. 
It can be increased easily by means of cuttings made of the 
summer growths about the end of July, and placed in pots 
of sandy soil in a slightly heated, close frame. 
Descriprion.—Shrub or small tree; young shoots tomen- 
tose; flowering twigs stout, rigid, straight, their internodes 
much shorter than the leaves. Leaves opposite, petioled, 
thick, firm and subcoriaceous, oblong-lanceolate, 4—10 in. 
long, including the petiole, 3-21 in. wide, gradually 
narrowed to an obtuse or subacute tip, base rounded or 
slightly auriculate, obsenrely toothed towards the tip, 
glabrous, somewhat polished and coarsely rugose above, 
densely white or brown tomentose with many-rayed 
stellate hairs beneath; nerves conspicuously impressed 
above and raised beneath. Inflorescence terminal, com- 
pound, umbellately cymose, four times branched, almost 
globose in outline, shorter than the leaves, about 6 in. 
across, everywhere stellate-tomentose. Bracts scale-like 
and inconspicuous; bracteoles geminate, linear or ovate, as 
Jong as the calyx or even rather longer. Flowers white, 
almost sessile, 24-33 lin. across. Calyx tomentose, with 
small ovate rather blunt lobes. Corolla almost rotate, 
lobes oblong-ovate, blunt. Stamens 5, exserted; filaments 
filiform ; anthers oblong, yellow. Ovary inferior, 1-celled 
and l-ovuled; styles 3, very short, united, their stigmas 
subcapitate. Fruit oblong, compressed, about 1 in. long, 
at first bright red, ultimately quite black, polished. Seed 
solitary, pendulous, albuminous; embryo very minute, 
lodged at the apex of the albumen. 
Fig. 1, a flower and bracteole; 2, a separate bracteole; 3, an expanded 
flower; 4, pistil and part of calyx, the ovary in section and showing the 
pendulous ovule ; 5, a hair from the calyx; 6 and 7, anthers, seen from in front 
and from behind ; 8, fruit; 9, the same in longitudinal section; 10, embry0: 
—all enlarged, 
