376 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



mens, whose anthers have long, tubular cells, ending in two 

 awns. 



The Clustered Zenobia. Z. racetnbsa. De Candolle. 



A low shrub, four to six feet high, with irregular, straggling 

 branches, much resembling the whortleberry bushes. Leaves 

 on very short petioles, broad-lanceolate or oval, acute at each 

 extremity, serrulate, of nearly the same color on both surfaces, 

 somewhat downy on the veins beneath. Flowers in regular 

 racemes, one to three, or four inches long, on the ends of the 

 floral branches, and usually protected by the leaves ; they are 

 all turned downwards and have been likened to rows of teeth. 

 Partial flower -stalk very short, with two small, colored bracts 

 at base. Calyx of five lanceolate, pointed, greenish or brownish 

 white segments, embracing the corolla, and, after that is fallen, 

 closely adhering to the ovary. 



Corolla oblong-cylindrical, contracted at the mouth, semi- 

 transparent at the line of the segments, which are rounded and 

 diverging or revolute at the extremity. Filaments dilated at 

 base, short, white, tapering to a brown point, supporting the 

 brown anthers, which are cleft, each division having two awns. 

 Style exserted. The ovary becomes a dry, globular capsule, 

 which opens in five recurved valves, surrounded by the persist- 

 ent calyx and bracts, and remaining usually till the flowers of 

 the next year appear. 



This is a beautiful but much neglected plant. Few exotics 

 have such elegance of appearance. Few are so little known. 

 This, like the plants of the previous genera, may be easily cul- 

 tivated. They require a peat soil or sandy loam. Don says 

 of them, " Being very ornamental, they are desirable shrubs in 

 every garden. They are propagated by layers or by seeds. 

 The seeds should be sown in pots or in pans, in sandy peat soil ; 

 they should be covered slightly with earth, as they are ex- 

 tremely small." — Gen. Sys., Ill, 831. 



. Oxydendrum arbbreum, Andromeda arlbrea of American bot- 

 anists, is a handsome, small tree, belonging to this group, which 

 might be easily introduced here, as it grows freely a little far- 

 ther south. 



