Class VI. Order I. 129 



138. PRINOS. 

 PRINOS VERTICILLA.TUS. Black Alder. 



Bigelow, Medical Botany, PI. Ivi. 



Leaves deciduous, oval, serrate, acuminate, slightly 

 pubescent beneath ; flowers axillary, aggregate. 



This shrub is irregular in its growth, but most commonly 

 forms branches six or eight feet in height. Leaves alternate or 

 scattered, on short petioles, oval or obovate, acute at base, sharp- 

 ly serrate, acuminate, with some hairiness, particularly on the 

 veins underneath. Flowers small, white, growing in little tufts 

 or imperfect umbels, which are nearly sessile in the axils of the 

 leaves. Calyx small, six cleft, persistent. Corolla inonopeta- 

 lous, spreading, without a tube, the border divided into six ob- 

 tuse segments. Stamens erect, with oblong anthers. In the 

 barren flowers they are equal in length to the corolla, in the 

 fertile ones shorter. Germ in the fertile flowers large, green, 

 roundish, with a short neck or style, terminating in an obtuse 

 stigma. Berries of a bright scarlet, in irregular bunches, round- 

 ish, supported by the persistent calyx, crowned with the stigma, 

 six celled, containing six long seeds, which are convex outward- 

 ly, and sharp edged within. These berries are bitter and un- 

 pleasant to the taste, with a little sweetness and some acrimony. 

 Swamps. July. 



PRINOS AMBIGUUS. MX. Long leaved Black Alder. 



Leaves deciduous, oval, acute at both ends, barren 

 flowers crowded, fertile ones solitary. 



Leaves more oblong, and less sharply serrate than in the last. 

 Flowers often four or five cleft. Roxbury. June. 



PRINOS GLABER. L. Evergreen Winter berry. 



Leaves wedge-lanceolate, glabrous, serrate at tip. 



Distinguished from the former by its smooth coriaceous, ever- 

 green leaves, which are of a bluntish lanceolate form, with a 

 few small remote teeth at the end. Flowers axillary. Swamp?, 

 June, July. 



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