84 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



ORDER LXIV.— T HYMELACEiE. 



Shrubs or small trees, very rarely annual herbs, with the leaves 

 alternate or opposite, simple and entire, not dotted. Stipules none. 

 Flowers perfect or dioecious, usually regular, in terminal heads or 

 spikes or in lateral clusters, rarely solitary, often enclosed by an invo- 

 lucre. Perianth single, usually coloured, rarely herbaceous, tubular 

 or funnelshaped or salvershaped ; tube free from the ovary ; limb 4-, 

 rarely 5-cleft; segments with imbricated oestivation. Petals absent 

 or represented by scales inserted in the throat of the calyx. Stamens 

 definite, usually 8 or 10, rarely 4 or 2, inserted on the tube or throat 

 of the perianth ; anthers 2-celled, opening longitudinally. Ovary 

 solitary, free from the perianth, 1 -celled; ovule 1, very rarely 2 or 3, 

 and superimposed, pendulous, anatropous; style 1, sometimes very 

 short; stigma undivided. Fruit a nut or drupe. Seed solitary, with 

 a thin testa ; albumen generally none, or, if present, in small quan- 

 tity, and fleshy ; embrj^o straight ; cotyledons fleshy ; radicle superior. 



GENUS /.— D A P H N E. Linn. 



Flowers perfect. Perianth withering and deciduous, coloured, 

 salvershaped or salvershaped-funnelshaped ; limb 4-cleft, spreading 

 or ascending, without scales in the throat. Stamens 8, inserted in 

 2 roAvs in the upper part of the perianth- tube, included. Style sub- 

 lateral, very short. Fruit drupaceous, containing a 1-seeded stone. 



Small shrubs, rarely trees, with the leaves entire, alternate, very rarely 

 opposite. Stipules none. Flowers lateral or terminal, often fragrant. 



The derivation of the name of this genus of plants is asserted by Lindlej, and some 

 other botanists, to liave been from the Greek name of the Huscus raceinosus, or Alex- 

 andrian laurel, into which it is fabled that Dai^hne was changed. It is stated in Rees' 

 Cyclopaedia that Laicrus nobills " is certainly the Daphne of Dioscorides, and conse- 

 quently the classical laurel." It is still called by the same name among the modern 

 Greeks ; this is also the popular belief. 



SPECIES I.-D APHNE MEZEREUM. Linn. 



Plate MCCXLVI. 



lielch. Fl. Genn. et Helv. Vol. XI. Tab. DLVI. Fig. 1181. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 1546. 



Stem erect, branched. Leaves oblanceolate, thin, deciduous. Flowers 

 appearing before the leaves, in lateral clusters arranged in spikes below 

 the apex of the branches, which afterwards produce terminal rosettes 



