EXMPETRACEAE. ; 181 
CERATIOLA. 
(Family Empetraceae). 
Low tender aromatic shrubs: 
evergreen. Twigs very slender, 
terete: pith minute, continuous. 
Buds_ sessile, compressed-ovoid, 
solitary and minute or the flower- 
buds in the upper axils larger 
and collaterally multiple, with 
about 3 exposed scales. Leaf- 
scars subverticillate, minute, cres- 
cent-shaped, elevated: bundle- 
trace 1: stipule-scars lacking. 
Leaves linear, revolute to a dor- 
sal slit so as to be almost terete. 
Only the genera of Empetra- 
ceae here given are known, and 
there is only one additional spe- 
cies,—a Corema in the Mediter- 
ranean region. Ceratiola is dis- 
tinctly more southern than our 
others and occurs from Florida to 
South Carolina. The cavity 
formed by its revolute leaves is filled by loose hairs. 
The Empetraceae not only resemble heaths in the peculiar 
type of revolution that their leaves show, but their fruit is 
comparable with that of the bearberry, and their pollen-grains 
occur in coherent groups of four as in the Ericaceae, of which 
family Dr.. Gray has supposed the Empetraceae to be a re- 
duced off-shoot. 
Twigs puberulent: bark tardily exfoliating. C. ericoides. 
