XXIII. THE COMMON WITCH-HAZEL, 417 



low hues of the falling leaves there is no more remarkable 

 object than the witch-hazel, in the moment of parting with its 

 foliage, putting forth a profusion of gaudy, yellow blossoms, 

 and giving to November the counterfeited appearance of spring. 

 It is a bushy tree, sending up a number of oblique trunks, 

 about the size of a man's arm or larger." 



The union, on the same individual plant, of blossoms, fading 

 leaves, and ripe fruits, not very common in any climate, and 

 occurring in no other instance in ours, led Linnaeus to give to 

 this American plant, a Greek name significant of the fact of its 

 producing " flowers together with the fruit." 



The witch-hazel is usually found within or on the borders of 

 moist woods, or among the scattered trees and shrubs which 

 often clothe the steep banks of small streams. It rises to the 

 height of from ten to twenty feet. In Essex woods, Mr. Oakes 

 pointed out to me one which exceeded twenty-two feet, and 

 was ten inches in circumference. The stem, which is seldom 

 erect, is covered with a brownish, ash-colored, rather smooth 

 bark; the branchlets of a lighter brown, with orange dots. 

 The branches are long and pliant, with an upward curvature. 

 The secondary branches are regularly alternate and lateral, 

 those at the distance of one third its length from the end of a 

 branch being longest. The leaves are lateral and alternate, or 

 collected in tufts on the ends of the branches. They are on 

 very short foot-stalks ; irregularly obovate or rhomboidal, ine- 

 quilateral, the lower side larger, lower on the stalk and half- 

 heart-shaped, the upper side narrower, and rounded or wedge- 

 shaped at base ; acuminate, irregularly toothed or sinuate, the 

 four or five principal veins on each side forming large teeth, 

 downy, at last smooth above, with a ferruginous, stellate pubes- 

 cence on the mid-rib, footstalk and veins beneath, the upper 

 surface a dull green, the lower brighter and more shining. 

 Stipules lanceolate, acute, coriaceous, half as long as the foot- 

 stalk, which is one fourth or one third as long as the leaf. At 

 the time when the flowers are expanding, the leaves become of 

 a delicate leather yellow. 



The flower-buds are already formed in August. The flow- 

 ers expand, sometimes as early as September, or as late as 

 54 



