SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
HAMAMELIS. 
FLOWERS usually perfect; calyx deeply 4-parted, the lobes imbricated in estiva- 
tion; petals 4, elongated-linear, involute in estivation ; stamens 8, those opposite the 
petals rudimentary and scale-like ; ovary 2-celled ; ovules suspended. Fruit a woody 
capsule, loculicidally dehiscent from the apex. Leaves alternate, stipulate, deciduous. 
Hamamelis, Linneus, Gen. ed. 2, 54 (1742).— A. L. de 456 (excl. Loropetalum). — Engler & Prantl, Pflanzen- 
Jussieu, Gen. 288.— Meisner, Gen. 153. — Endlicher, fam. iii. pt. ii. 128. 
Gen. 804. — Oliver, Trans. Linn. Soc. xxiii. 459.— Trilopus, Mitchell, Act. Nat. Cur. viii. Appx. 219 (1748). — 
Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 667.— Baillon, Hist. Pl. iii. Adanson, Fam. Pl. ii. 381. 
Trees or shrubs, with scaly bark, terete zigzag branchlets, naked buds, and fibrous roots. Leaves 
involute in vernation, alternate, unsymmetrical at the base, crenate-toothed, the primary veins conspic- 
uous and nearly parallel with the margins, deciduous; stipules acute, nfolding the buds, deciduous.’ 
Flowers autumnal or hyemal, perfect or polygamous,” in terminal three-flowered clusters borne on axil- 
lary simple, or rarely branched peduncles furnished near the middle with two acute deciduous bractlets, 
each flower surrounded by two or three ovate acute bracts, the outer slightly united at the base into a 
three-lobed involucre. Calyx deeply four-parted, persistent on the base of the ovary, the lobes reflexed. 
Petals inserted on the margin of the cup-shaped receptacle, alternate with the sepals, strap-shaped. 
Stamens eight in two rows, inserted on the margin of the receptacle, the four opposite the lobes of the 
calyx fertile, the others reduced to minute strap-shaped scales; filaments free, shorter than the calyx, 
prolonged into the thickened pointed connective ; anthers muticous, attached at the base, two-celled, 
introrse, the elliptical cells opening laterally from within by persistent valves. Ovary composed of two 
carpels free at their apex, inserted m the bottom of the receptacle, partly superior; styles subulate, 
spreading, stigmatic at the apex, persistent; ovules one, or two in each cell*® becoming solitary by 
abortion, suspended from the apex of the axile placenta; micropyle superior, raphe ventral. Fruit 
capsular, partly superior, two-beaked at the apex, the thick and woody exocarp splitting from above 
loculicidally before the opening of the thin crustaceous endocarp. Seed oblong, acute, suspended ; testa 
1 In the American species the stipules only partially inclose the 2 The flowers of Hamamelis are described by many authors as 
winter-bud and fall away from the upper leaf, that is, the last leaf polygamous and monecious ; in the American species, although 
formed in the previous autumn, as it begins to expand, although varying somewhat in size on the same individual, they appear to 
they generally remain during the spring and early summer on the _ be generally perfect. 
leaves which unfold after the opening of the bud. On Hamamelis * Baillon, Adansonia, x. 126. 
mollis, a native of China, the stipules are more developed than on 
the other species and entirely inclose the winter-buds. 
