PLATE XX. 



1. DAPHNE CNEORUM. 



TRAILING DAPHNE. 



THIS geuus comprises plants of the low shrubby ornamental, 

 evergreen, and deciduous kinds. 



It belongs to the class and order Octandria Monogynia, and ranks 

 in the natural order of Fepreculce. 



The characters are: that there is no calyx: the corolla one-pe- 

 talled, funnel-form, withering, including the stamens: tube cylindric, 

 imperforate, longer than the border : border four-cleft ; divisions 

 ovate, acute, flat, spreading: the stamina have eight, short filaments, 

 inserted into the tube; the alternate ones lower: anthers roundish, 

 erect, two-celled : the pistillum is an ovate germ : style very short : 

 stigma headed, depressed-flat : the pericarpium a roundish one-, 

 celled berry: (drupe berried superior;) the seed single, roundish, 

 fleshy. 



The species are : 1. D. Mezereum, Mezereon ; 2. D. Laureola, 

 Wood or Spurge Laurel; 3. D. tartouraira, Silvery-leaved Daphne, 

 or Tartouraira; 4. D. cneontm, Trailing Daphne; 5. D. odora, Sweet- 

 smelling Daphne. 



The first is a shrub, growing to the height of from three or four 

 to five or six feet, with a strong woody stalk, putting out many 

 woody branches on every side, so as to form a regular head. The 

 leaves are smooth, about two inches long, and three quarters of an 

 inch broad in the middle, placed without order. The flowers come 

 out very early in the spring, before the leaves, in clusters all round 

 the shoots of the former year. The fruit is a superior berried drupe, 

 fir&t green, then red, of an ovate-globular form; with a thin succu- 



