Empetraceae. 



181 



M 



Cebatiola. 

 (Family Empetraceae). 



Low tender aromatic shrubs: 

 evergreen. Twigs very slender, 

 terete: pith minute, continuous. 

 Buds sessile, compressed-ovoid, 

 solitary and minute or the flower- 

 buds in the upper axils larger 

 and collaterally multiple, with 

 about 3 exposed scales. Leaf- 

 scars subverticillate, minute, cres- 

 cent-shaped, elevated: bundle- 

 trace 1: stipule-scars lacking. 

 Leaves linear, revolute to a dor- 

 sal slit so as to be almost terete. 

 Only the genera of Empetra- 

 ceae here given are known, and 

 there is only one additional spe- 

 cies, a Corema in the Mediter- 

 ranean region. Ceratiola is dis- 

 tinctly more southern than our 

 others and occurs from Florida to 

 South Carolina. The cavity 

 formed by its revolute leaves is filled by loose hairs. 



The Empetraceae not only resemble heaths in the peculiar 

 type of revolution that their leaves show, but their fruit is 

 comparable with that of the bearberry, and their pollen-grains 

 occur in coherent groups of four as in the Ericaceae, of which 

 family Dr. Gray has supposed the Empetraceae to be a re- 

 duced off-shoot. 

 Twigs puberulent: bark tardily exfoliating. 



C. ericoides. 



