862 THE OAK FAMILY. 



thickly-branched and matted tufts, twelve to eighteen or twenty inches 

 in diameter. The leaves are narrow linear, crowded, and dark green, 

 with their edges so much rolled back as almost to meet. The flowers 

 are minute, unisexual, and seated in the axils of the upper leaves. 

 They consist of six little scales placed in two rows, with six smaller 

 ones external to them, the males containing three stamens with large 

 purple -anthers, on long filaments that bring them plainly into view, 

 and the females a solitary ovary, with six or more radiating stigmas. 

 The fruit is a globular black berry the size of a pea, and contains six 

 to nine triangular seeds arranged in a circle. 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 

 Ceowberrt — {Empitrum nigrum.) 

 On all the hilly moorlands in the district, plentiful. Found also 

 upon the borders of the mosses. Carrington Moss. Fl. May ; berries 

 ripe in August. 



E. B. \'iii. 52G ; Baxter, Vi. 469. 



CXVI.— THE OAK FAMILY. Coryldcece. 



The Oak Family leads the way to a large assemblage of trees and 

 shrubs which are among the noblest and most beautiful in nature. 

 By many botanists they are collected together under a single name, 

 and called the AmentacecB or " catkin bearers." But there are im- 

 portant differences, both in the veining and the figure of the leaves, 

 and in the structure of the female flowers and of the fruits, so that 

 strongly as they resemble one another in respect of the inflorescence 

 or "catkins," it becomes expedient to distinguish them into six or 

 eight separate families. Of these, the most interesting and the most 

 largely represented in England, are the oak family, the birch family, 

 and the poplar family. Next come the walnut family and the plane- 

 tree family ; and afterwai-ds some little groups consisting only of 

 shrubs. The Amentacctc compose the great mass of those living and 

 glorious temples we call the woods. The lime, the ash, and the 

 sycamore grovv in the hedge-rows and open country ; but the silent 

 forest, where we lift up our eyes as into the clouds of a green heaven, 

 where we are always young, and the uucpiiet world seems to have 

 slipped away like the worn-out skin from the enamelled snake, — this is 

 made chiefly of the grand, inunortal Amentacea), the silver birch, the 



