parting with its foliage, putting forth a profusion of gaudy 
yellow blossoms, and giving to November the counterfeited 
appearance of spring. The union on the same individual 
of blossoms, fading leaves, and ripe fruits, not very 
common in any climate, led Linnzus to give to an 
American plant a Greek name, significant of the fact of 
its producing flowers together with the fruit.”—Vol. u. 
. 472. 
In Plate 6659 of last year’s volume of this work, the 
rare H. japonica is figured, and the slight diagnostic 
characters which separate it from this are alluded to. Of 
these the chief are the more numerous leaf-nerves, broader 
revolute brown calyx-lobes, and shorter fruiting calyx of 
the Japan plant. 7 
The Witch Hazel, though rare enough in modern 
gardens, is a very old denizen of England, having been 
introduced in 1736. It flowers annually in Kew in winter, 
but in very various months. 
Descr. A bush or small tree, attaining twenty feet; 
branchlets puberulous, bifarious, slender. Leaves very 
irregular in form, from rounded obovate to ovate elliptic 
or oblong, usually unequally two-lobed at the base, three 
to six inches long, sometimes nearly as broad, margin 
waved, coarsely toothed or lobulate ; nerves strong, five to 
seven pairs, stellately pubescent, at length glabrous ; petiole 
rather short; stipules lanceolate. Flowers in small globose 
peduncled axillary involucrate heads, polygamous. Caly# 
one-quarter of an inch in diameter, with a brown scale-like 
bract at its base; tube pubescent, obconic ; lobes broadly 
ovate, obtuse, brown externally, pale within, ciliate. Petals 
strap-shaped, golden yellow, one-half to two-thirds of an 
inch long. Stamens four, alternating with as many 
incurved staminodes. Ovary hairy; styles recurved. Cap- 
sule ovoid, invested half-way up by the enlarged calyx.— 
ag EE 7 specie iin : 
Fig. L Flower; 2, petal; 3, stamen and staminodes; 4 and 5, stamens; 
6, staminode ; 7, ovary ; _8, vertical section of young carpel ; 9, ripe fruit ; 10, seed ; 
11, embryo ; 12, ripe truit of H. japonica ; 13, seed of ditto; 14, embryo of ditto; 
—all enlarged. : 
