428 BETULACEJE. (BIRCH FAMILY.) 
Drupe oblong, obtuse, narrowed at the base : epicarp thick, coriaceous, smooth : 
endocarp crustaceous. Albumen none. Embryo large, filling the cell. Coty- 
ledons oval, compressed. Radicle superior. — A stout shrub, 29 — 6° high, with 
Soft wood and smooth light-brown bark, without resinous dots. Branches short 
and thick, hoary-pubescent when young. Leaves oblong or obovate-oblong (4/~ 
6/ long), acute at each end, entire, smooth and shining above, hoary-tomentose 
beneath, straight-veined, on long spreading or recurved hoary petioles, decidu- 
ous. Stipules none. Aments developed before the leaves, from the axils of the 
preceding year, the sterile ones 1'- 14 long, the fertile 6 - 8" long. Drupe 4! 
long, green, slightly curved. 
1. L. Floridana,— Salt or brackish marshes, Apalachicola, Florida.— 
Feb. and March. 
Orver 130. BETULACEJE. (Bron Fawn) — 
Trees or shrubs, with alternate simple straizht-veined leaves, deciduous 
stipules, and monccious amentaceous flowers, placed 2-3 together i in the 
axil of a 3-lobed bract. Stamens 4: filaments distinct. Ovary 2-celled, 
with a single suspended anatropous ovule in each cell. Stigmas 2, elon- 
gated. Fruit a winged or angled 1-celled 1-seeded nut, forming, with the 
imbricated persistent bracts, a cone-like spike. oF 
1, BETULA, Tourn. Brom- 
Sterile aments drooping. Bracts 3-flowered, 2-bracteolate, peltate. Calyx 
scalelike. Stamens short: anthers l-celled. Fertile aments oblong or que 
drical Bracts 3-flowered. Calyx none. Stigmas filiform. Nut broadly 
Cotyledons oblong. — Trees or shrubs, with the outer bark often separable im” 
thin papery sheets. Leaves petioled, serrate. Fruiting bracts membranaceous: - 
1. B. nigra, L. (Brack Biron.) Leaves rhombic-ovate, acute, acute, doubly 
serrate, smooth above, hoary-tomentose beneath, like the short petioles and 
branchlets, becoming rusty or smoothish ; sterile aments long and drooping’ 
the fertile ones oblong, short-peduncled, iie the woolly bracts cleft into dee 
linear-oblong nearly equal lobes. (B. rubra, Michz.) — Banks of rivers and 
and northward. March.—A middle-sized tree, with reddish-brown bark, 
long spreading branches, 
2. B. excelsa, Ait (YeLLow Breen.) Leaves vale or di 
acuminate, unequally and doubly serrate, pubescent, like the branchlets, 
young, at length smooth on both sides, on short pubescent petioles; ime 
 &ments oval-oblong; lobes of the bracts nearly equal, slightly abe 
Mita Acute. (B. lutea, Mica) Mountains of North Carolina, 
