30 ENGLISU BOTANY. 



And \vc read of 



«* Arbutus, with his scarlet grain, 



That riclily crowns Irene's plain." 



In Spain a sugar and tolerable spirit are extracted from the fruit, and in Corsica 

 a wine is fermented from it. In the neighbourhood of Algiers it forms hedges, and 

 in Greece and Spain the bark is used by tanners, and the charcoal made from the wood 

 is highly valued. No plant is more worthy of a place in gardens and ornamental 

 plantations than the Arbutus— the durability and beauty of its shining green leaves, 

 the brownish-red colour of its young shoots, the waxy and delicate appearance of its 

 flowers, which are produced in abundance at a season when most plants are beginning 

 to shed their leaves, and the sjilendour of its bright-red fruit, which often remains on 

 during all the winter — all render it a most desirable plant. It will thrive in any 

 tolerably free soil, though a sandy loam appears to suit it best. 



Tribe II.— ANDHOMEDE^. 



Corolla deciduous. Fruit a capsule, superior. 



GEN US IV.— K NDROMEDA. Linn. 



Calyx free from the ovary, 5-cleft or 5-partite. Corolla hypo- 

 gynous, deciduous, monopetalous, globose- or ovoid-urceolatc or 

 urceolate-campanulate, with 5 reflexed teeth. Stamens 10 ; fila- 

 ments subulate ; anthers with 2 horns at the apex, or obtuse, 

 generally without awns, but sometimes these are present. Fruit 

 a capsule, with 5 cells opening loculicidally by 5 valves break- 

 ing away from the central placental column, and bearing the 

 dissepiments attached along the middle of each valve. Seeds very 

 numerous. 



Shrubs, undershrubs, or trees, with various habit, with the 

 flower resembling those of Arbutus ; but the fruit is always a dry 

 capsule. Inflorescence-buds scaly. It is now usually divided into 

 numerous genera, but on insufficient characters. 



The name of this genus of plants was given to it fancifully, either from the con- 

 stellation of the same name, or, according to Linnaeus, in allusion to the mythological 

 legend of the Princess Andi'omeda, who was doomed to pine away on a desolate rock, 

 but was rescued by Perseus ; a curious and ingenious application of the fable to the 

 plant, rather far-fetched, for the plant grows and lives in damp low places, instead 

 of being attached to a rock. 



SPECIES I.— ANDROMEDA POLIPOLIA. Linn.. 



Plate DCCCLXXXIII. 



Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et llelv. Vol. XVII. Tab. MCXLI. Fig. 1. 

 Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 270. 



