448 THYHEL^EACE.fc. (MEZEREUM FAMILY.) 



ORDER 94. THYMEL^ACE^E. (MEZEREUM FAMILY.) 



Shrubs, with acrid and very tough (jiot aromatic) bark; entire leaves, and 

 perfect flowers with a reyular and simple colored calyx, bearing usually 

 twice as many stamens as its lobes, free from the 1-celled and 1-ovuled ovary, 

 which forms a berry-like drupe in fruit, with a single suspended anatro- 

 pous seed. Embryo large ; albumen little or none. 



1. Dirca. Calyx tubular, without spreading lobes. Stamens and style exserted. 



2. Daphne. Calyx-lobes (4) spreading. Stamens included. Style very short or none. 



1. D I B, C A, L. LEATHERWOOD. MOOSEWOOD. 



Calyx petal-like, tubular-funnel-shaped, truncate, the border wavy or ob- 

 scurely about 4-toothed. Stamens 8, long and slender, inserted on the calyx 

 above the middle, protruded, the alternate ones longer. Style thread-form ; 

 stigma capitate. Drupe oval (reddish). A much-branched bush, with jointed 

 branchlets, oval-obovate alternate leaves, at length smooth, deciduous, on very 

 short petioles, the bases of whicn conceal the buds of the next season. Flowers 

 light yellow, preceding the leaves, 3 or 4 in a cluster from a bud of as many 

 dark-hairy scales, forming an involucre, from which soon after proceeds a leafy 

 branch. (Name of uncertain derivation.) 



1. D. palustris, L. Shrub 2-5 high; the wood white, soft, and very 

 brittle ; but the fibrous bark remarkably tough (used by the Indians for thongs, 

 whence the popular names). Damp rich woods, N. Brunswick to Minn, and 

 Mo., south to the Gulf. April. 



2. DAPHNE, Linn. MEZEREUM. 



Calyx salver-shaped or somewhat funnel-shaped, the border spreading and 

 4-lobed. Stamens 8, included ; the anthers nearly sessile on the calyx tube. 

 Style very short or none; stigma capitate. Drupe red. Hardy low shrub. 

 (Mythological name of the nymph transformed by Apollo into a Laurel.) 



D. MEZEREUM, L. Shrub 1-3 high, with purple-rose-colored (rarely 

 white) flowers, in lateral clusters on shoots of the preceding year, before the 

 lanceolate very smooth green leaves ; berries red. Escaped from cultivation 

 in Canada, Mass., and N. Y. Early spring. (Nat. from Eu.) 



ORDER 95. ELJEAGNACE^E. (OLEASTER FAMILY.) 



Shrubs or small trees, with silvery-scurfy leaves and perfect or dioecious 

 flowers ; further distinguished from the Mezereum Family by the erect 

 or ascending albuminous seed, and the calyx-tube becoming pulpy and 

 berry-like in fruit, strictly enclosing the achene. 



1. Elaeagnus. Flowers perfect. Stamens 4. Leaves alternate. 



2. Sheplierdia. Flowers dioecious. Stamens 8. Leaves opposite. 



1. ELJEAGNUS, Tourn. 



Flowers perfect. Calyx cylindric-campanulate above the persistent oblong 

 or globose base, the limb valvately 4-cleft, deciduous. Stamens 4, in the throat. 

 Style linear, stigmatic on one side. Fruit drupe-like, with an oblong, 8-striate 

 stone. Leaves alternate, entire and petioled, and flowers axillary and pedi- 



