292 SANDAL WOOD FAMILY. 



D. Cnebriim. Hardy under-shrub from Eu., spreading and branching, 

 with crowded lance-oblong or oblanceolate evergreen leaves (less than 1' long), 

 and a terminal cluster of handsome rose-pink flowers in spring. 



D. odbra, SWEET DAPHNE. Greenhouse shrub from China, with bright 

 green lance-oblong evergreen leaves, and terminal clusters of white or pale pink 

 sweet-scented flowers, in winter. 



2. DIRCA, LEATHER WOOD, MOOSE-WOOD. (Classical ftreek 

 name of a celebrated fountain.) 



D. pallistris, the only species, in damp woods chiefly N. : shrub 2 -6 

 high, with tender white wood, but very tough bark, used' bv the Indians for 

 thongs (whence the popular names), the numerous branches as if jointed ; leaves 

 obovate or oval, alternate, nearly smooth, deciduous ; flowers before the leaves 

 in earliest spring, honey-yellow, few in a cluster from a bud of 3 or 4 dark-hairy 

 scales forming an involucre ; berry reddish. 



98. EK2EAGNACEJS, OLEASTER FAMILY. 



Silvery-scurfy shrubs or small trees, having often dioecious 

 inconspicuous flowers, the calyx-tube of the fertile ones itself 

 enclosing the ovary, becoming fleshy and ripening into a sort of 

 berry, around the akene-like true fruit, the seed of which is erect. 

 Otherwise much like the preceding family. 



Shepherdia Canadensis, a low shrub along our northern borders, with 

 opposite oval leaves, soon green above, but silvery and with some rusty scurf 

 beneath, dioecious 4-parted flowers, and yellow berries. 



S. argentea, BUFFALO-BKRRY, shrub through the plains and mountains 

 far W. and N. W., and planted for ornament, has alternate oblong leaves with 

 narrowed base, silvery both sides, and edible acid red berries. 



Elaeagnus argentea, SILVER-BERRY of the far West, also cult., with 

 oval silvery leaves and mealy edible berries ; the genus known by the mostly 

 perfect flowers with salver-shaped calyx, the stamens only as many as the lobes, 

 usually 4. One or two Old World species are occasionally planted. 





99. SANTALACEJE, SANDALWOOD FAMILY. 



Represented by one or two shrubs along the Alleghanies S., one 

 ' fDI '" ^ t ^ iern ^e PYRULARIA OLEIFERA, the OIL-NUT or BUFFALO-NUT, 

 and widely by a low herb, viz. 



1. Comandra umbellata. Dry ground, common N. : probably para- 

 sitic on the roots of shrubs. Known by the 5 stamens with their anthers 

 connected with the face of the white calyx-lobes behind them by a tuft of thread- 

 like hairs (to which the name, from the Greek, alludes) ; tube of the calyx 

 coherent below with the ovary, becoming a hard or nut-like fruit, filled by a 

 globular seed. Stems 6' - 10' high, with many small oblong pale leaves. 



100. LORANTHACE^I, MISTLETOE FAMILY. 



Parasitic on the branches of trees, represented only, through the 

 Middle and Southern States, by 



Phoradendron flavescens, AMERICAN MISTLETOE; with obovate or 

 oval, yellowish-green, thick, slightly petioled leaves, and short yellowish jointed 

 spikes in their axils, of dioecious greenish flowers, the fertile ones nooning v/hitu 

 berries. 



