DIRCA DISCARIA 499 



not protruded. Dirca is a moisture-loving plant, and likes a deep soil 

 to which some peat is added. A specimen in the Cambridge Botanic 

 Garden has attained a diameter of 9 ft. The remarkable toughness and 

 flexibility of the shoots have been taken advantage of in several ways. 

 In early times the American Indians used the bark for making ropes, 

 and the twigs are still used in rural districts as tying material and for 

 basket-making. 



DISANTHUS CERCIDIFOLIA, Maximowicz. HAMAMELIDACE^. 



(Sargent's Forest Flora of Japan, t. 1.5.) 



A deciduous shrub up to 8 or 10 ft. high, with slender, spreading 

 branches ; young shoots perfectly smooth and round, and marked with 

 small whitish lenticels. Leaves alternate, firm, very broadly ovate to 

 roundish, heart-shaped or truncate at the base, blunt and rounded at the 

 apex ; 2 to 4^ ins. long, and almost or quite as broad ; perfectly smooth, 

 glaucous green and entire ; stalk i to 2 ins. long. Flowers dark purple, 

 two of them set back to back at the end of a stalk ^ in. long, produced 

 from the leaf-axils. Each flower is J in. across, with five narrow tapering 

 petals, arranged starwise ; calyx with five short recurved lobes ; stamens 

 live. Seed-vessel a woody, nut-like capsule. 



Native of Japan; introduced about 1893, not yet well known in 

 gardens. It has not yet flowered in Britain to my knowledge, and the 

 appearance of the blooms is chiefly known from Sargent's figure above 

 cited. We know it, however, to possess one excellent quality : its foliage 

 handsome and Judas-tree like in form, turns in autumn to one of the 

 loveliest of claret-reds suffused with orange. No new shrub, indeed, is 

 more beautiful in this respect. It is rather tender when young, but 

 appears quite hardy after a few years. A plant at Kew, 3 ft. high, 

 growing in peaty soil in a bed of heaths, is in excellent condition, and 

 was not injured in the least in the winter of 1908-9. Disanthus (the 

 name refers to the paired flowers) is only known by this species. It 

 belongs to that group of the Witch-hazel family with many seeds in each 

 fruit. In Japan it flowers in October when the previous year's seeds are 

 ripening, resembling in this respect its ally the Virginian witch-hazel 



DISCARIA. RHAMNACE^:. 



s 



A genus of small trees or shrubs closely allied to Colletia, and found 

 chiefly in S. America. One almost hardy species is found in New 

 Zealand, and the same or a nearly allied one in Tasmania and S. Australia. 

 The leading characteristics of these plants are their large opposite spines, 

 which are really reduced branches ; their opposite or clustered leaves, and 

 their numerous small, clustered, axillary flowers, of which a bell-shaped 

 calyx is the most conspicuous part, the petals being often absent. Fruit 

 a dry, three-lobed capsule. Besides the two species described below, a 

 third is sometimes cultivated, viz., D. LONGISPINA, Miers^ a native of 



