THE MEZEKEON FAMILY. 167 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 

 Sandy ground, both waste and cultivated, frequent. Common about 

 Bowdon and Baguley. Fl. July. Annual. 



E. B. V 351 ; Baxter, vi. 439. 



XLVI.— THE MEZEREON FAMILY. Thymelacece. 



Shrubs of inconsiderable stature, with flowers recommended either 

 by their tender loveliness, early appearance, or delicious odour. 

 Leaves simple, undivided, entire, exstipulate, and often evergreen ; 

 inflorescence various ; perianth single, tubular, and four-cleft, pink, 

 white, or greenish, and often downy or hairy on the outside ; stamens 

 eight, four long and four short, inserted in the mouth of the tube ; 

 pistil solitary ; stigma capitate, and almost sessile ; ovary one-celled, 

 often becoming a berry. 



About three hundred species are known, natives principally of 

 Australia and the Cape of Good Hope, though many belong to the 

 colder parts of India and South America. In Europe they occur but 

 sparingly. They are remarkable for the stringiness and tenacity of 

 their bark, and no less for the caustic properties of the same part, 

 which supplies, in difierent kinds, materials for paper and fine cordage, 

 and for use in medicine as an irritant and vesicatory. The celebrated 

 lace-bark tree, or Lagetta Untedria, of the West Indies, is foremost in 

 the first respect, and the common red mezereon in the second. Every 

 part of this well-known shrub is excessively acrid, and acts as a local 

 irritant poison. Birds alone eat the berries with impunity. 



Fig. 116. 

 Flower of Mezereon (cut open). 



Two species grow wild in England, one of them being found near 

 Manchester, — the spurge laurel, or Daphne Laureola, a glabrous shrub, 

 two to three feet high, its erect, flexible, and nearly naked branches 

 terminating in rosettes of lanceolate and evergreen leaves, two or three 

 inches long, and bearing in their axils small clusters of greenish- 



