2 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
HAMAMELIDEX. 
crustaceous, chestnut-brown, shining.’ Embryo surrounded by thick fleshy albumen ; cotyledons oblong, 
foliaceous, longer than the radicle turned towards the oblong depressed hilum. 
Hamamelis is confined to eastern America and eastern Asia. 
Three species are known ; one is 
° . . ° ° 2 = be = 
American, a second inhabits the mountain forests of Japan, and of central China,’ where, in Kiangsi 
and Hupeh, the third species* occurs. 
The appearance of the flowers of Hamamelis in autumn simultaneous with the ripening of the 
fruit of the previous year and after the foliage has assumed its autumnal colors, or in winter or early 
spring while the branches are bare of leaves, gives special interest to the species of this genus, which is 
not known to possess useful properties. 
The American species of Hamamelis is not attacked by many insects,‘ or seriously affected by 
fungal diseases.’ 
The generic name, from dua and unAic¢, once applied to the Medlar, or to some other plant resem- 
bling the Apple-tree, was first given by Linnzus to the American species. 
1 In Hamamelis Virginiana the seed is forcibly discharged to a 
considerable distance by the contraction of the edges of the valves 
of the bony endocarp, which in opening suddenly frees it by pres- 
sure and causes it to fly upwards (Elliott, Sk. i. 219. —Gray, Am. 
Jour. Sci. ser. 3, v. 144. — Bot. Gazette, vii. 125, 137). 
? Hamamelis Japonica, Siebold & Zuccarini, Abhand. Akad. 
Miinch. iv. pt. ii. 193 (1843).— Miquel, Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. 
ill. 21.— Franchet & Savatier, Enum. Pl. Jap. i. 163; ii. 368. — 
Bot. Mag. eviii. t. 6659. — Forbes & Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. xxiii. 
290. — Sargent, Garden and Forest, iv. 256, f. 45. 
Hamamelis Virginiana, var. Japonica, Franchet, Pl. David. i. 
131 (1884). 
In Japan Hamamelis Japonica is found in southern Yezo and in 
the mountain forests of the three southern islands, where, in the 
neighborhood of streams, it is common at an elevation of from 
two to four thousand feet above the sea, often becoming a tree 
thirty to forty feet in height with a short stout trunk sometimes 
eighteen inches in diameter ; or, under less favorable conditions, 
In China it has been found 
in the neighborhood of Kiukiang in Kiangsi. The flowers of the 
Japanese plant are rather smaller than those of the American 
species, and on plants cultivated in the United States and in 
a straggling many-stemmed shrub. 
Europe appear in winter or in very early spring ; they vary in 
color, one form producing flowers with calyx-lobes claret-colored 
on the inner surface and with light yellow petals (Hamamelis ar- 
borea, Masters, Gard. Chron. n. ser. xv. 216, £. 38 [1881] ; ser. 3, 
ix. 248, f. 55.— The Garden, xxxvii. 79; xxxix. 546, t. — André, 
Rev. Hort. 1891, 472, t.) ; while in the other the calyx-lobes are a 
light yellowish brown and the petals canary-yellow (Hamamelis 
Zuccariniana, The Garden, xxxv. 309 [1889]). 
In its native country the foliage of Hamamelis Japonica during 
the months of October and November enlivens the forests with 
shades of brilliant orange, or rarely of deep vinous red. 
8 Hamamelis mollis, Oliver, Hooker Icon. xviii. t. 1742 (1888). — 
Forbes & Hemsley, Jour. Linn. Soc. xxiii. 290. 
* Few insects are described as living upon Hamamelis in the 
United States or as affecting it injuriously. Packard (5th Report 
U. S. Entomolog. Comm. 1886-1890, 668) enumerates six species, 
and a number of others are known. Larve of such moths as Sco- 
pelosoma Moffatiana, Grote, and Halesidota Carye, Clemens, devour 
the leaves, while several species of the small Tortricids, or Leaf- 
miners, like Gracilaria superbifrontella, Clemens, and Catastega 
hamameliella, Clemens, feed upon or mine within the parenchyma. 
The most conspicuous and peculiar injuries to Hamamelis are 
caused by two aphid-galls, one affecting the leaves, the other the 
fruit. The first of these, Hormaphis Hamamelidis, Osten Sacken, 
makes cone-shaped galls on the upper surface of the leaves ; the 
other, Hormaphis spinosus, Osten Sacken, infests the young fruit 
after it begins to grow in spring, causing it to develop into a 
hollow gall as large as the mature fruit or larger, covered on the 
outside with spines, and filled with aphids and their liquid secre- 
tions (Trans. Am. Entomolog. Soc. i. 284). Bees and wasps are 
often attracted in large numbers to Hamamelis in search of the 
secretions of these aphids, which appear to be peculiar to the 
genus. 
° In America Hamamelis is subject to no serious fungal disease, 
although the leaves of Hamamelis Virginiana are inhabited by sev- 
eral small and peculiar species of fungi of considerable interest to 
botanists. Of these the mildew Podosphera biuncinata, Cooke & 
Peck, with its well-marked appendages, is « characteristic North 
American species. Phyllosticta Hamamelidis, Cooke, Ramularia 
Hamamelidis, Peck, and Cercospora Hamamelidis, Ellis & Everhart, 
form discolored spots on the leaves, and are slightly injurious to 
the plant. 
