



410 BETULACE^E. (BIRCH FAMILY.) 



scale-like bract and with a pair of bracelets. Stamens 2-8: filaments some- 

 what united below. Ovary with 3 scales at .'ts base, and 2 thread-like stigmas. 

 Fruit a small globular nut, studded with resinous grains or wax. (Mupi'/o;, the 

 ancient name of the Tamarisk or some other shrub ; perhaps from p.vpia>, 

 to perfume.) 



1. Iff. Crale, L. ( SWEET GALE.) Leaves wedge-lanceolate, serrate towards 

 the apex; pale, later than the flowers; sterile catkins cloudy cluttered; nuts in im- 

 bricated heads, enclosed in the thick pointed ovate scales which coalesce with 

 its base. Wet borders of ponds, New England to Virginia in the mountains, 

 Penu., Wisconsin, and northward. April. Shrub 3 -5 high. (En.) 



2. I?I. e-erifera, L. (BAYBERRY. WAX -MYRTLE.) Leaves oblong-Ian- 

 ceoJate, narrowed at the base, entire or wavy-toothed towards the apex, shining 

 and resinous-tlutted both sides, somewhat preceding the flowers ; sterile catkins scattered, 

 oblong; scales wedge-shaped at the base; nut scattered and naked, incrustcd 

 with white wax. Sandy soil on and near the sea-shore: also on Lake Erie. 

 May. Shrub 3 - 8 high, with fragrant leaves : the catkins sessile along the 

 last year's branches ; the fruits sometimes persistent for 2 or 3 years. 



2. COiUPTONIA, Solander. SWEET FERN. 



Flowers monoecious ; the sterile in cylindrical catkins, with kidney-heart- 

 shaped pointed scale-like bracts, and 3-6 stamens; the fertile ^in globular 

 aments, bur-like : ovary surrounded by 5 or 6 long linear-awl-shaped scales, 

 persistent around the ovoid-oblong smooth nut : otherwise as in Myrica. 

 Leaves linear-lanceolate, pinnatifid with many rounded lobes, thin, appearing 

 rather later than the flowers. Stipules half heart-shaped. (Named after //< nry 

 Compton, Bishop of London a century ago, a cultivator and patron of botany.) 



1. C. asp I en if 61 ia, Ait. Sterile hills, E. New England to Virginia. 

 Also N. Wisconsin. April, May. Shrub, l-2 high, with sweet-scented 

 fern-like leaves. 



ORDER 109. BETULACEJE. (Bincn FAMILY.; 



Monoecious trees or shrubs, with, both kinds of flowers in scaly catkins, 2 or 

 3 under each bract, and no involucre to the naked l-cclled and 1-sceded often. 

 willed nut, which results from a 2-celled and 2-ovuled ovary ; otherwise 

 much as in the Oak Family. 



1. BETUL.A, Tourn. BIRCH. 



Sterile flowers 3, and bractlets 2, under each scale or bract of the catkins, 

 consisting each of a calyx of one scale and 4 stamens attached to its base : fila- 

 ments very short: anthers 1 -celled. Fertile flowers 3 under each 3-lobed bract, 

 with no separate bractlets and no calyx, each of a naked ovarv with 2 thread- 

 like stigmas, becoming a broadly winged and scale-like nutlet or smnll samara. 

 Seed suspended, anatropous. Cotyledons flattish, oblong. Ont<-r bark usually 

 separable in thin horizontal sheets, that of the branchlets dottrd. Twigs and 





