NAT. ORDER. SPIRJJACE^E. 145 



year very smooth and yellow, leafy, and terminated by an umbel ; the 

 leaves are alternate, on very short petioles, smooth, glaucous, wide 

 ovate, retuse, gash-trilobate ; they vary even in the garden, with more 

 or less freciuent gashes, with the teeth obtuse or acute, in breadth ; 

 the umbels arc very frequent at the ends of the annual branches ; pe- 

 duncles often more than thirty, besides a few axillary ones scattered 

 below the umbel ; flowers middle sized, white. This is an elegant 

 shrub, and a native of Siberia. 



Spircca opulifolia. Currant-leaved Spirsea. This species rises 

 with many shrubby branching stalks, eight or ten feet high, in good 

 ground, but generally five or six ; they are covered with a loose brown 

 bark, whicli falls ofT; the leaves are about the size and shape of those 

 of the common currant-bush, ending in acute points, and serrate on 

 their edges ; the flowers are produced in roundish bunches at the end 

 of the branches ; they are white, with some spots of a pale red. It is 

 a native of Canada and Virginia, and is mostly known in the nurseries 

 by the name of Virginian Golden Rose. 



SpircBci sorhifolia. Service-leaved Spirsea. This kind rises with 

 shrubby stalks like the first, but sends out horizontal branches, which 

 are slender, and covered with a brown bark ; the leaves are of a thin 

 texture, and a bright gi-een color on both sides, slightly and acutely 

 sen-ate ; the flowers are in terminating panicles, small and white. It 

 is a native of Siberia, and produces its flowers in August. 



Spircca aruncas. Goat's-beard Spirsea. This species has a pe- 

 rennial root ; the stem is annual, and from three to four feet in height ; 

 the leaves are doubly pinnate, each having three or four pairs of ob- 

 long leaflets, terminated by an odd one ; tliey are two inches long, and 

 almost an inch broad, serrate, and ending in acute points ; the flowers 

 are disposed in long slender spikes, formed into loose tenninating pani- 

 cles, which arc small, white, and of two sexes in the same spike. It 

 is a native of Germany, and flowers in June and July. 



Spiraea fdi I tcndnla. Common Dropwort. This plant has a peren- 

 nial root, consisting of oval tubers or solid lumps, hanging from the 



