236 
GUTTIFERAE. 
ASCYRUM. 
St. Peter’s Wort. 
(Family Guttiferae). 
Small dense but flexible shrubs: 
deciduous. Twigs very slender, 
2-winged beneath the leaf-scars, 
with red quickly exfoliating bark: 
pith brown, minute, spongily ex- 
cavated. Buds solitary, sessile, 
minute, with 2 exposed scarcely 
specialized scales, often develop- 
ing the first season. Leaf-scars 
opposite, minute, triangular, 
raised by the enlarged nodes: 
bundle-trace 1, scarcely distin- 
guishable: stipule-scars lacking. 
American botanists have been 
unwilling to merge this and the 
following genus into the QGutti- 
ferae, as is done here, and in 
local Manuals the family Hyperi- 
caceae is maintained for them. As 
a rule they are small plants 
scarcely more than half-shrubby, 
and in comparison with most of the popularly selected shrub- 
bery plants they are without marked value. Like species of 
Cistus, however, they are bright when in flower, and St. Pe- 
ter’s Wort, especially, forms compact masses that fit well into 
certain situations. 
Very low and slender (twigs 1 mm. thick). 
(St. Andrew’s cross). (1). A. hypericoides. 
Somewhat larger and stouter (twigs 1.5-2 mm. thick). 
(St. Peter’s wort). A. stans. 
