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GUTTIFERAE. 



Ascybum. St. Peter's Wort. 

 (Family Guttiferae). 



Small dense but flexible shrubs: 

 deciduous. Twigs very slender, 

 2-winged beneath the leaf-scars, 

 with red quickly exfoliating bark: 

 pith brown, minute, spongily ex- 

 cavated. Buds solitary, sessile, 

 minute, with 2 exposed scarcely 

 specialized scales, often develop- 

 ing the first season. Leaf-scars 

 opposite, minute, triangular, 

 raised by the enlarged nodes: 

 bundle-trace 1, scarcely distin- 

 guishable: stipule-scars lacking. 



American botanists have been 

 unwilling to merge this and the 

 following genus into the Gutti- 

 ferae, as is done here, and in 

 local Manuals the family Hyperi- 

 caceae is maintained for them. As 

 a rule they are small plants 

 scarcely more than half-shrubby, 

 and in comparison with most of the popularly selected shrub- 

 bery plants they are without marked value. Like species of 

 Cistus. however, they are bright when in flower, and St. Pe- 

 ter's Wort, especially, forms compact masses that fit well into 

 certain situations. 

 Very low and slender (twigs 1 mm. thick). 



(St. Andrew's cross). (1). A. hypericoides. 

 Somewhat larger and stouter (twigs 1.5-2 mm. thick). 



(St. Peter's wort). A. stans. 



