CROWBERRY 267 



stiff greyish-green bush with hard pointed leaf-like branches 

 (cladodes) bearing the small greenish-white flowers, in 

 the axils of minute membranous scales near the middle 

 of the flattened surface above. 



Flowers dio3cious, with a persistent 6-partite perianth, 

 stamens 6, the filaments forming a tube, with often only 

 3 anthers developed in the male flowers. Female flower 

 with a 3-celled ovary and a simple style with entire 

 stigma ; staminal column barren. Fruit a red berry. 

 Our only woody Monocotyledon. 



tt Flowers not on cladodes; but small, pink, 

 and sessile in the axils of the upper leaves ; 

 petals and sepals 3 each, scale-like, imbri- 

 cated. Fruit small, black, drupe-like. 



Empetrum nigrum, L. Crowberry. Glabrous, heath- 

 like sub-shrub, prostrate like Loiseleuria, with small, 

 crowded, evergreen, rolled leaves. 



Flowers dioecious, minute, sessile in the axils of the 

 upper leaves, pink or purplish. Chiefly anemophilous. 

 Perianth of 3 outer and 3 inner, hypogynous, imbricated 

 scale-like segments, and about 6 basal bracts. Male 

 flowers with 3 exserted, free stamens. Female flower 

 with a single superior ovary, on a fleshy hypogj^nous disc 

 3 9 chambered ; style short ; stigma with 6 9 radiating 

 arms. Fruit black, globose, about the size of a pea, with 

 one chamber and bony endocarp. 



** Flowers with sepals different from petals 

 i.e. dichlamj^deous ; not sessile in upper 

 leaf -axils, and not pink ; tetramerous. 



+ Ovary inferior and the 4 purple-brown petals 

 epigynous. Flowers in dichasial panicle-like 

 cymes, with decussate branches. Fruit a 

 scarlet berry. Laurel-like shrub. 



