class tetrandria. 



61 



floret succeeds a somewhat woody, 2-celled, 2- 

 seeded capsule, which divides commonly into two 

 parts, so as to appear a kind of double pericarp ; the 

 receptacle, or common globular point of attachment 

 for the florets, is somewhat hairy. There is only one 

 species of the genus known, and exclusively indigen- 

 ous to the United States and Canada ; it bears en- 

 tire leaves by 2's and 3's, or opposite and ternate, 

 at each joint of the stem. In the southern states 

 there is a variety, with the leaves and branchlets 

 pubescent. 



I know no common, prevalent name for our beautiful 

 Hovstonia ccervlea, which bears low tufts of delicate 

 pale blue cross-shaped flowers, adorning every mossy 

 bank or shorn meadow, and presenting themselves in 

 all directions, like the eyes of Argus ; seeming almost 

 as handfulls of pale scattered flowers of the Lilac, 

 which had come ton early to maturity. Each little 

 plant, when examined apart, presents a few forked 

 branches of an inch or two in length, and with but a 

 few ovate or egg-shaped leaves, principally clustered 

 round the root. The flower consists of a small 4- 

 cleft calyx ; a somewhat funnel-formed, long-tubed 

 corolla, with an elegant 4-lobed border ; to this 

 succeeds a half-superior, 2-celled, 2-valved, many- 

 seeded capsule, which opens transversely or across. 



The beautiful little evergreen, box-leaved Mitchella, 

 or Partridge berry, of our shady woods, is also de- 

 serving of particular attention ; its branches trail along 

 the ground, and form a small, deep green, shining 

 mat, enlivened, about June and July, with pairs of 

 white, 4-cleft, monopetalous flowers, singularly vil- 

 lous or downy on the upper or inner surface ; but 

 the most remarkable character of the genus, of which 

 there is but a single species, is, that by the ingraft- 

 ment and coalescence of the two germs of each pair 

 6 



