426 LORANTHACE^. (MISTLETOE FAMILY.) 



2. PYRULARIA, Mkhx. Oil-nut. Buffalo-nut. 



Flowers dioecious or polygamous. Calyx 4-5-cleft, the lobes recurved; a 

 tuft of hairs at their base iu the male tlowers. Stamens 4 or 5, on very short 

 filaments, alternate with as many rounded <;lands. Fertile flowers with a pear- 

 shaped ovary invested by the adherent tube of the calyx, naked at the flat sum- 

 mit : disk with 5 glands: style short and thick : stigma capitate-flattened. Fruit 

 fleshy and drupe-like, pear-shaped ;' the globose entloearp thin. Embryo small : 

 albumen very oily. — Shrubs or trees, with alternate short-petioled and decidu- 

 ous leaves; the small greenish flowers in short and simple spikes or racemes. 

 (Name a diminutive o( Pi/nis, from the fruit, which in the original species looks 

 like a small pear.) 



1. P. oleifera, Gray. Shrub straggling (.3°- 12° high), nunutely downy 

 when young, at length nearly glabrous ; leaves obovate-oblong, acute or pointed 

 at both ends, soft, very veiny, minutely pellucid-punctate ; spike small and few- 

 flowered, terminal; calyx 5-cleft. (P. piibera, 37/c/tx. ; a little older than the 

 other specific name, but much less appropriate. Hamiltonia oleifera, Mull.) — 

 Rich woods, mountains of Pennsylvania, and southward through the Allegha- 

 nies. May. — Whole plant imbued with an acrid oil, especially the fruit, which 

 is an inch long. 



Order 92. LORANTHACE.E. (Mistletoe Family.) 



Shrubby plants icith coriaceous greenish foliarie, parmitic on ?ree>", repre- 

 sented in the northern temperate zone chiefly by the Mistletoe and its 

 near allies ; distinguished from the preceding family more by the parasitic 

 growth and habit, and by the more reduced flowers, than by essential 

 characters : represented by an American genus nearly allied to Viscum, or 

 true Mistletoe, viz. 



1. PHORADENDRON, Nutt. False Mistletoe. 



Flowers dioecious, in short and catkin-like jointed spikes, usually several under 

 each short and fleshy bract or scale, and sunk in the joint. Calyx globular, 3- 

 (rarely 2-4-) lobed : in the staminate flowers a sessile anther is borne on the 

 base of each lobe, and is transversely 2-celled, each cell opening by a pore or 

 slit : in the fertile flowers the calyx-tube adheres to the ovary : stigma sessile, 

 obtuse. Berry I-seeded, pulpy. Embryo small, half imbedded in the summit 

 of mucilaginous albumen. — Yellowish-green woody parasites on the branches 

 of trees, with jointed much-branched stems, thick and firm persistent leaves (or 

 only scales in their place), and axillary small spikes of flowers. (Name com- 

 posed of ^cop, a thief, and bevhpov, tree; because these plants steal their food 

 from the trees they grow upon.) 



1. P. flav6scens, Nutt. (^mekican Mistletoe.) Leaves ol)ovate or 

 oval, somewhat petioled, longer than the si)ike5> in their axils, yellowish ; berries 

 white. (Viscum flavesccns, Pursh.) — New Jersey to Illinois and southward, 

 on various deciduous-leaved trees. 



