18 Addisonia 



the slimmer by the blue fruits. The plant needs an acid for its 

 growth. It thrives best in a humus derived from its own decaying 

 leaves, and it also grows well in a humus derived from decaying oak 

 leaves and from those of related trees. 



This beautiful evergreen is a plant of the past, not only as a spe- 

 cies, but also from the standpoint of the individual. By calculating 

 the rate of the annual growth the largest plant we are now ac- 

 quainted with would be several thousand years old. The box- 

 huckleberry thus justly deserves to be called the " Methuselah of the 

 Huckleberries." 



The box-huckleberry is a low shrub extensively spreading under- 

 ground, the branchlets mostly less than a foot tall, branched, the 

 twigs bright green, glabrous, slightly zigzag, with a ridge below each 

 leaf. The leaves are alternate, rather numerous, sometimes distich- 

 ously spreading, persistent and evergreen. The blades are elliptic 

 to ovate, one inch long or less, usually about three quarters of an 

 inch long, short-petioled, deep green and shining above, pale green 

 and rather dull beneath, obscurely veined on both sides, glabrous, 

 obtuse, shallowly crenate-serrate, with a more or less readily decid- 

 uous stipitate gland on each tooth. The flowers are few and several 

 together in sessile or short-stalked panicle-like racemes, in the axils 

 of the upper leaves, usually crowded. The bractlets are scale-like, 

 one twelfth to one sixth of an inch in length, obovate, oval, or ovate, 

 obscurely ciliolate. The hypanthium is glabrous, green and saucer- 

 shaped. The sepals are ovate to orbicular-ovate or deltoid, or 

 triangular-ovate, about one twenty-fourth of an inch long, obtuse 

 or acute, glabrous. The corolla is pink or rarely white, one fourth 

 of an inch long or less, urceolate, angled, glabrous, with the lobes 

 broader than long, obtuse, much shorter than the tube. The ten 

 stamens are erect, included. The filaments are flat, linear, and 

 slightly tapering above the middle, magenta, finely pubescent, at 

 least ciliate, more than one twelfth of an inch long. The anthers 

 are much shorter than the filaments, green, glabrous, with each sac 

 prolonged into a short tubular tip which opens lengthwise. The 

 ovary is depressed, glabrous, inferior. The style is columnar-conic, 

 arising from the depressed cup-like apex of the ovary, expanded 

 into the somewhat disk-like stigma at the apex. The drupe is berry- 

 like, pyriform, about a half inch long or less, or the very late ones 

 much smaller, purple-black beneath the glaucous bloom which some- 

 what disappears in age, more or less nodding on the short stalk. The 

 pulp is quite juicy and abundant, enclosing ten pale flat seeds which 

 are about one twelfth of an inch long. 



John K. Small. 



Explanation op Plate. Fig. L — Tip of flowering branch. Fig. 2. — 

 Corolla laid open and split between two of the lobes, X 2. Fig. 3. — Stamen, X 5. 

 Fig. 4. — Flower with the corolla removed, X 3. Fig. 5. — Fruiting branch. 



