f 

 Dirca. THYMELEACE^E. Ql 



1. UMBELLULABIA, Nutt. MOUNTAIN LAUREL. SPICE-TREE. 



Flowers perfect, in pedunculate umbels which are included before expansion in 

 involucres consisting of 4 broad caducous bracts : calyx deciduous, 6-parted : stamens 

 9, inserted on the throat in 3 rows, the 3 inner with a fleshy 2-lobed stipitate gland 

 on each side of the base, alternating with 3 ligulate staminodia ; anthers 4-celled, 

 4-valved, the outer intvorse, the inner extrorse : stigma dilated, somewhat lobed : 

 drupe subglobose, subtended by the thickened base of the calyx. Arborescent, 

 with alternate petioled thick and evergreen leaves, very odoriferous : inflorescence 

 terminal or axillary. A single species. Benth. & Hook. Gen. PI. iii. 162. 



1. U. Californica, Xutt. A handsome shrub or tree, 10 to 70 feet high or 

 more, the young branches, petioles, arid inflorescence somewhat puberulent : leaves 

 green and shining, lanceolate-oblong, acute at each end or sometimes rounded at 

 base, 2 to 4 inches long, short-petioled : peduncles in an apparently terminal panicle 

 or solitary in the upper axils, 6 to 12 lines long, 6- 10-flowered; involucral bracts 

 ovate, imbricated ; pedicels 1 to 5 lines long, usually bracteate at base : sepals yel- 

 lowish green, 1| to 2| lines long, oblong to ovate; stamens included: drupes on 

 short stout axillary or terminal peduncles, solitary or 2 or 3 together, ovate-elliptical 

 or globose, nearly an inch long, becoming dark purple with thin pulp and stone. 

 Sylva, i. 87. Lnurus regia, Dougl. Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 127. Tetranthera Cali- 

 fornica, Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beechey, 159. Meissner, DC. Prodr. xv 1 . 193; New- 

 berry, Pacif. ~R. Rep. vi. 24, fig. 3. Oreodaphne Californica, Nees, Syst. Laur. 463 ; 

 Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 5320. Drimophylium pauciflorum, Nutt. Sylva, i. 85, t. 22. 



From Douglas County, Oregon (Douglas), to San Diego, flowering in March and April, the 

 fruit ripening in July and persistent until the next year. In the more southern localities and in 

 the Sierra Nevada it rarely exceeds 10 or 20 feet in height, but northward it becomes a large tree 

 4 to 6 feet in diameter and 100 feet high or more, the timber very handsome and valuable, much 

 used for ornamental wainscoting and furnishing. The foliage is exceedingly acrid, exhaling when 

 bruised a very pungent aromatic effluvium which excites sneezing. The tree is known by various 

 names, as California Olive, California Laurel, Cajepnt, etc. The inflorescence is at first appar- 

 ently terminal but usually becomes axillary by the prolongation of the branch. Few of the flow- 

 ers set fruit, rarely more than one or two in a cluster. 



ORDER LXXXII. THYMELE ACE-SI. 



Shrubs or small trees, distinguished fry a very tough fibrous inner bark, perfect 

 flowers, a gamosepalous petaloid perianth bearing on its tube usually twice as many 

 stamens as there are lobes, introrse anthers dehiscing longitudinally, and a pistil of a 

 single carpel, the ovary usually containing a single anatropous ovule suspended from 

 the summit of the cell. Fruit usually a berry : embryo filling the seed, with plano- 

 convex cotyledons. Flowers axillary or terminal, often fascicled. 



An order of nearly 40 genera and over 300 species, largely of the warm extra-tropical regions of 

 Africa and Australia, remarkable for the toughness of the bark and burning acridity of the juice. 

 Various species have furnished material for cordage and paper, and others have been employed for 

 medicinal purposes or for dyeing ; some, as Daphne Mezereum, are cultivated for ornament. The 

 following is the only North American genus. 



1. DIRCA, Linn. LEATHERWOOD. 



Flowers perfect : perianth light-yellow, glabrous, tubular-funnelform, the limb 

 obliquely truncate, 4-lobed or repandly toothed. Stamens 8, attached near the 



