410 betulace^e. (birch family.) 



scale-like bract and with a pair of bractlets. Stamens 2-8: filaments some- 

 what united below. Ovary with 3 scales at its base, and 2 thread-like stigmas. 

 Fruit a small globular nut, studded with resinous grains or wax. (Mupi/07, the 

 ancient name of the Tamarisk or some other shrub ; perhaps from pvpLfe, 

 to perfume.) 



1. JW. CUsaSe, L. (Sweet Gale.) Leaves wedge-lanceolate, serrate towards 

 the apex; pale, later than the flowers ; sterile catkins closely clustered; nuts in im- 

 bricated heads, enclosed in the thick pointed ovate scales which coalesce with 

 its base. — Wet borders of ponds, New England to Virginia in the mountains, 

 Penn., Wisconsin, and northward. April. — Shrub 3° -5° high. (Eu.) 



2. M. ceHfera, L. (Bayberry. Wax-Myrtle.) Leaves oblong-lan- 

 ceolate, narrowed at the base, entire or wavy-toothed towards the apex, shining 

 and. resinous-dotted both sides, somewhat preceding the flowers ; sterile catkins scattered, 

 oblong; scales wedge-shaped at the base; nuts scattered and naked, incrusted 

 with white wax. — Sandy soil on and near the sea-shore : also on Lake Erie. 

 May. — Shrub 3° - 8° high, with fragrant leaves : the catkins sessile along the 

 last year's branches ; the fruits sometimes persistent for 2 or 3 years. 



2. COMPTONIA, Solander. Sweet Fern. 



Flowers monoecious; the sterile in cylindrical catkins, with kidney-heart- 

 shaped pointed scale-like bracts, and 3-6 stamens; the fertile in globular 

 aments, bur-like : ovary surrounded by 5 or 6 long linear-awl-shaped scales, 

 persistent around the ovoid-oblong smooth nut : otherwise as in Myrica. — 

 Leaves linear-lanceolate, pinnatifid with many rounded lobes, thin, appearing 

 rather later than the flowers. Stipules half heart-shaped. (Named after Henry 

 Compton, Bishop of London a century ago, a cultivator and patron of botany.) 



1. C. asplenifoiia, Ait. — Sterile hills, E. New England to Virginia. 



Also N. Wisconsin. April, May. — Shrub, l°-2° high, with sweet-scented 

 fern-like leaves. 



Order 109. BETULACEiE. (Birch Family.) 



Monoecious trees or slmtbs, with both kinds of flowers in scaly catkins, 2 or 

 3 under each brad, and no involucre to the naked l-celled and 1-seeded often 

 winged nut, which results from a 2-celled and 2-ovuled ovary ; — otherwise 

 much as in the Oak Family. 



1. BETULA, Tourn. Birch. 



Sterile flowers 3, and bractlets 2, under each scale or bract of the catkins, 

 consisting each of a calyx of one scale and 4 stamens attached to its base : fila- 

 ments very short: anthers 1-cellcd. Fertile flowers 3 under each 3-lobed bract, 

 with no separate bractlets and no calyx, each of a naked ovary with 2 thread- 

 like stigmas, becoming a broadly winded and scale-like nutlet or small samara. 

 Seed suspended, anatropous. Cotyledons flattish, oblong.— Outer bark usually 

 separable in thin horizontal sheets, that of the brancblets dotted. Twigs and 



