XX. 7. THE BOXBERRY. 379 



flowers are in terminal, crowded, sessile clusters or corymbs. 

 At the base of each partial footstalk is a whorl of three, con- 

 cave, lanceolate, hairy, green bracts, ending in a long point. 

 Just above is the calyx of five narrow, subulate segments, half 

 as long as the tube of the corolla. The rose-colored or white 

 pearly corolla is a long tube, very hairy within, the extremity 

 expanding into five rounded lobes. On the throat appear the 

 yellow anthers, opening from top to bottom, and resting upon 

 slender filaments, hairy towards the base, proceeding from the 

 bottom of the tube. Leaves alternate. Footstalks hairy, half 

 as long as the leaves, channelled above. Leaves oblong, cor- 

 date, rounded at the extremity, and often mucronate, ciliate 

 on the margin, coriaceous and evergreen, smooth and shiny 

 above; veinlets impressed; shiny and somewhat hairy, espe- 

 cially on the mid-rib and veins beneath. Stigma headed, five- 

 pointed; style straight; ovary ovate, hairy. The flower buds 

 are formed in August. 



The May .flower is found as far north as the Saskatchawan, 

 throughout Canada and Maine, and thence to the sand hills of 

 Carolina and Georgia. 



XX. 7. THE BOXBERRY. GAULTHE^RIA. L. 



A genus named by Kalm, the favorite pupil of Linnssus, in 

 honor of Gaulthier, a physician and botanist of Quebec in Canada. 

 It contains, according to De Candolle, about forty species, the 

 greater part of which are found in North and South America, 

 especially in Mexico, some on the mountains of Central Asia 

 and Java, three in New Zealand. They are shrubs and under 

 shrubs, sometimes low trees, with alternate leaves, and axillary 

 or terminal, often fragrant flowers, white, rose-colored, or scar- 

 let. The calyx is five-cleft, with two bracts, distinct or united, 

 beneath ; corolla ovate, with a short, revolute, five-cleft border; 

 stamens eight or ten, with hairy filaments, and anthers bi-lobed 

 at top, each lobe two-awned ; ten scales, distinct or united, in 

 the bottom of the cup; capsule depressed, globose, five-furrowed, 

 five-valved, five-celled, many-seeded, invested at base by the 

 calyx, which sometimes becomes berry-like. 



