392 OAK FAMILY. 



small ; shoots and leaves nearly smooth ; leaflets 5-7, obovate-lanceolate ; 

 fruit pear-shaped ; nut oblong or oval, hard-shelled, seed at first sweet, 

 then bitterish. Me., S. and W. ' 



C. amara. Nutt. BITTER NUT. Moist or low grounds, N. Eng., W. 

 and S. ; bark of trunk smooth and very close ; yellowish bud scales about 

 6 ; shoots and leaves pubescent when young; leaflets 7-11, lanceolate or 

 lance-oblong ; fruit globular ; nut white, thin-shelled, and tender, also 

 globular ; seed at first sweet, then very bitter. 



C. aquatica, Nutt. WATER H. River swamps, S. Car., S. Small 

 tree, with rough bark ; bud scales as in the last ; leaflets 9-13, lanceolate, 

 smooth ; nut thin-shelled, 4-angular, flattish; seed very bitter. 



CVIII, MYRICACE^E, SWEET GALE FAMILY. 



Shrubs, with resinous-dotted often fragrant simple leaves, 

 and monoecious or dioecious flowers solitary under a scale-like 

 bract, both kinds in short scaly catkins or heads, and destitute 

 of any proper calyx or involucre, the 1-seeded fruit a fleshy 

 little drupe or at length dry nut, commonly coated with wax. 



1. MYRICA. Flowers dioecious or monoecious, the catkins from lateral scaly buds ; each 

 flower with a pair of bractlets ; the sterile of 2-8 stamens ; the fertile of an ovary bear- 

 ing 2 slender stigmas and surrounded by a few little scales. 



1. MYRICA, BAYBERRY, SWEET GALE. (Ancient name of some 

 aromatic shrub.) Flowers spring, with or earlier than the leaves. 



* Leaves entire or simply serrate ; flowers mostly dioecious, the ovary with 



2-4 scales at base and the nut globular. 



M. Gale, Linn. SWEET GALE. Cold bogs N.; l-4 high, with pale 

 wedge-lanceolate leaves, serrate towards the apex ; little nuts crowded, 

 and as if winged by a pair of scales. 



M. cerlfera, Linn. BAYBERRY, WAX MYRTLE. Along the coast, 

 Canada S., and on Lake Erie ; shrub 2-8 high, with fragrant lance- 

 oblong or lanceolate mostly entire leaves, becoming glossy above, the 

 scattered bony nuts thickly incrusted with greenish or white wax, and 

 appearing like berries. 



* * Leaves pinnatifid j flowers mostly monoecious, the ovary with 8 long 



linear scales at base, the nut ovoid-oblong. 



M. asplenif61ia, Endl. SWEET FERN. In sterile soil, N. Eng. to 

 Minn., and S.; l-2 high, with linear-lanceolate downy leaves, pinnatifid 

 into many short and rounded lobes, resembling a Fern, and sweet-aro- 

 matic. 



CIX. CUPULIFEBJE, OAK FAMILY. 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate and simple straight-veined 

 leaves, very deciduous stipules, and monoecious flowers ; the 

 sterile in slender catkins (except in the Beech) ; the fertile 

 solitary, clustered or spiked, and furnished with an involucre 

 which forms a cup or covering to the 1-celled 1-seeded nut, or in 

 the Birches and Alders with no involucre. Fruit a rounded, 



