The Fruit of Garry a. 



From what materials the descriptions of the fruit of the 

 genus Garrya may have been drawn I am unable to say. 

 Whether any of the pistillate shrub has been grown in Europe 

 or not, I know not. Lindley in publishing the genus mentions 

 only the staminate as having flowered in England in 1833'. 

 But it is manifest both that his account of the fruit is very 

 erroneous, and that with all its errors it has been copied by 

 Endhcher, Bentlmm, and even by us Americans, Californians 

 and all, down to the present time. The only species whose 

 fruit I ever saw in abundance is G. Wright it of New Mexico; 

 but during the several years of my residence and travel within 

 Its habitat, I paid no attention to its fruit, taking it for granted 

 that it was baccate as described. The type of the genus is 

 G. elhphca of western California. It flowers in February, 

 ripening its fruit in August ; but until this year I had never 

 seen the fruit. Only the staminate shrub is frequent in my 

 neighborhood. For some good fruiting aments in their 



T^ii"*^ ^^'^ ^''""^ '''^'''" ^®®° ^^ °'^' ^ """^ indebted to the zeal 

 of Mr. Frank Nutting, who brought them to me from near 



the summit of Mt. Tamalpais. The first glance at these clus- 

 ters revealed the fact that the fruit is not baccate but capsular ; 

 and the capsule has a circiimscissile dehiscence. In each 

 araent as the specimens lay before me, several of the globose 

 fruits had already shed the upper hemisphere of their peri- 

 carp, jhile the lower one, remaining firmly attached to the 

 axis of the ament, in some cases was already vacant, while in 

 o^rs the tvTO large pulp-co^ed seeds occupied the base of 



' Botanical Kegister, xx. t. 1686. 



