EMPETRACE.E. (CROWBERRY FAMILY.) 393 



styles 3, thick, awl-shaped, recurved, stigmatic down their whole length inside. 

 Pod globular, 3-horned, 3-ceiied, splitting into 3 at length 2-valvcd 2-seeded 

 carpels. — Nearly glabrous, low and procumbent, perennial herbs, with matted 

 creeping rootstocks, and alternate, ovate or obovate, coarsely toothed leaves, 

 narrowed at tbe base into a petiole. Flowers each 1 - 3-bracted, the upper ones 

 staminate, a few fertile ones at the base, unpleasantly scented : sepals greenish : 

 filaments white (the size and thickness of the latter giving the name, from 

 iraxvs, thick, and livhpa, used for stamen). 



1. P. proCMKlbeiJS, Michx. Stems (6' -9' long) bearing several ap- 

 proximate leaves at the summit on slender petioles, and a few many-flowered 

 spikes along the base; the intervening portion naked, or with a few small scales. 

 — "Woods ; mountains of Kentucky, W. Virginia, and southward. March, April. 



Ricinus communis, the Castor-oil Plant, and Buxus semperyirenb, 

 the Box, arc cultivated representatives of tins order. 



Mercurialis Annua, of Em-ope, has been found growing spontaneously 

 in Boston, and in Charleston, S. Carolina. 



Order 103. JGMPETRACE^E. (Crowberry Family.) 



Low shrubby evergreens, with the foliage, aspect, and compound pollen of 

 Heaths, and the drupaceous fruit q/"Arctostaphylos, but the stigmas, &c. of 

 Euphorbiaceae : — probably an apetalous and polygamous or dioecious de- 

 generate form of Ericaceae, — comprising three genera, two of which occur 

 within the limits of this work, and the third in Georgia, &c. 



i. EMPETBUBI, Tourn. Crowberry. 



Flowers polygamous, scattered and solitary in the axils of the leaves (incon- 

 spicuous), scaly-bracted. Calyx of 3 spreading and somewhat petal-like sepals. 

 Stamens 3. Style very short: stigma 6-9-rayed. Fruit a berry-like drupe, 

 with 6-9 seed-like nutlets; each containing an erect anatropous seed. Embryo 

 terete, in the axis of copious albumen, with a slender inferior radicle and vcrv 

 small cotyledons. (An ancient name, from eV, upon, and irirpos. a rock.) 



1. E. nigrum, L. (Black Crowberry.) Procumbent and trailing; 

 leaves linear-oblong, scattered; fruit black. — Alpine summits of the moun- 

 tains of New England and N. New York; L. Superior, and northward. (Eu.) 



2. CO RE MA, Don. (Broom-Crowberry.) 



Flowers dioecious or polygamous, collected in terminal heads, each in the axil 

 of a scaly bract, and with 5 or 6 thin and scarious imbricated bractlets, but no 

 proper calyx. Stamens 3, rarely 4, with long filaments. Style slender, 3- (4 -5-) 

 cleft: stigmas narrow, often toothed. Drupe small, with 3 (rarely 4-5) nut- 

 lets. Seed, &c. as in the last. — Diffusely much-branched little shrubs, with 

 scattered or nearly whorled narrowly linear leaves. (Name <6pnp.a, a broom, 

 from the bushy aspect.) 



