174 WITCH-HAZEL FAMILY. 



XLH HAMAMELIDE^, WITCH-HAZEL FAMILY 



Shrubs or trees, with alternate simple leaves, deciduous 

 stipules, small flowers in heads, spikes, or little clusters, the 

 calyx united below with the base of the 2-styled ovary, which 

 forms a hard or woody 2-celled and 2-beaked pod, opening at 

 the summit. Stamens and petals inserted on the calyx. 



1. Shrubs, with perfect or merely polygamous flowers, a regular calyx, and a single 

 ovule, becoming a bony seed, suspended from the top of each cell. 



1. HAMAMELIS. Flowers in small clusters in the axils of the leaves, expanding late in 



autumn, ripening the seeds the next summer. Calyx 4-parted. Petals 4, strap- 

 shaped. Stamens 8, very short ; the 4 alternate with the petals bearing anthers, the 

 4 opposite them imperfect and scale-like. Styles short. Pod with an outer coat 

 separating from the inner. 



2. FOTHERGILLA. Flowers in a scaly-bracted spike, in spring, rather earlier than the 



leaves. Calyx bell-shaped, slightly 5-7-toothed. Petals none. Stamens about 24, 

 rather showy, the long and club-shaped filaments bright white. Styles slender. Pod 

 hairy. 



2. Tree, with monoecious small flowers, in dense heads or clusters, destitute both of 

 calyx and corolla, the fertile with many ovules in each cell, but only one or two 

 ripening into scale-like seeds. 



3. LIQUIDAMBAR. Heads of flowers each with a deciduous involucre of 4 bracts, the 



sterile in a conical cluster, consisting of numerous short stamens with little scales 

 intermixed ; the fertile loosely racemed or spiked on a drooping peduncle, composed 

 of many ovaries (surrounded by some little scales), each with 2 awl-shaped beaks, all 

 cohering together and hardening in fruit. 



1. HAMAMELIS, WITCH-HAZEL. (An old Greek name.) 



H. Virginiana, Linn. Tall shrub, of damp woods, with the leaves 

 obovate or oval, wavy-toothed, straight-veined like a Hazel, slightly 

 downy ; the yellow flowers remarkable for their appearance late in 

 autumn, just as the leaves are turning and about to fall. Seeds ripening 

 the following year, and forcibly ejected from the capsule through hygro- 

 scopic action. 



2. FOTHEROILLA. (Named for Dr. Fothergill of London, an early 

 botanist.) 



F. Gard&ni, Linn. Low, rather ornamental shrub, in swamps, from 

 Va. S., with oval or obovate, straight-veined leaves, toothed at the sum- 

 mit and often hoary beneath, the white flowers hi spring. 



3. LIQUIDAMBAR, SWEET GUM TREE or BILSTED. (Names 

 allude to the fragrant juice or balsam which exudes from the trunk.) 



L. Styracfflua, Linn. The only species of this country ; a large and 

 beautiful tree in low grounds, from S. N. Eng. to 111., and especially S., 

 with fine-grained wood, gray bark forming corky ridges on the branches, 

 and smooth and glossy, deeply 5-7-lobed leaves, which are fragrant when 

 bruised, changing to deep crimson in autumn, their triangular lobes 

 pointed and beset with glandular teeth ; greenish flowers appearing with 

 the leaves in early spring. Cult. 



