SANTALACEJE. (SANDALWOOD FAMILY.) 381 



1. SHEPHERDIA, Nutt. SHEPHERDIA. 



Flowers dioecious ; the sterile with a 4-parted calyx (valvate in the bud) and 8 

 stamens, alternating with as many processes of the thick disk ; the fertile with 

 an urn-shaped 4-cleft calyx, enclosing the ovary (the orifice closed by the teeth 

 of the disk), and becoming berry-like in fruit. Style slender : stigma 1-sided. 

 Leaves opposite, entire, deciduous ; the small flowers nearly sessile in their 

 axils on the branchlets, clustered, or the fertile solitary. (Named for John Shep 

 herd, formerly curator of the Liverpool Botanic Garden.) 



1. S. CanadensiS, Nutt. (CANADIAN SHEPHERDIA.) Leaves ellipti- 

 cal or ovate, nearly naked and green above, silvery-downy and scurfy with rusty 

 scales underneath ; fruit yellowish-red. Rocky or gravelly banks, W. Vermont 

 to Wisconsin and northward. May. A straggling shrub, 3 - 6 high ; the 

 branchlets, young leaves, yellowish flowers, &c., covered with the rusty scales. 

 Fruit insipid. 



S. ARGENTEA, Nutt., the BUFFALO-BERRT of Upper Missouri, which has 

 narrower leaves, silvery on both sides, and edible, acid, scarlet fruit, is somewhat 

 cultivated for ornament. 



ELJBAGNUS ARGENTEA, Pursh, the SILVER-BERRY, may perhaps be found 

 within our northwestern limits. 



ORDER 96. SANTALACE^E. (SANDALWOOD FAMILY.) 



Herbs, shrubs, or trees, with entire leaves; the 4-5-cleft calyx valvate in 

 the bud, its tube coherent with the 1-celled ovary, which contains 2-4 ovules 

 suspended from the apex of a stalk-like free central placenta which rises from 

 the base of the cell, but the (indehiscent) fruit always 1-seeded. Seed des- 

 titute of any proper seed-coat. Embryo small, at the apex of copious al- 

 bumen : radicle directed upward : cotyledons cylindrical. Stamens equal 

 in number to the lobes of the calyx, and inserted opposite them into the 

 edge of the fleshy disk at *heir base. Style 1. A small order, the greater 

 part belonging to warm regions, here represented only by the two follow- 

 ing genera. 



1. COMANDRA, Nutt. BASTARD TOAD-FLAX. 



Flowers perfect. Calyx bell-shaped or soon urn-shaped, lined above the 

 ovary with an adherent disk which has a 5-lobed free border. Stamens inserted 

 on the edge of the disk between its lobes, opposite the lobes of the calyx, to the 

 middle of which the anthers are connected by a tuft of threads. Fruit drupe- 

 like or nut-like, crowned by the persistent calyx-lobes, the cavity filled by the 

 globular seed. Low and smooth perennials, with herbaceous stems from a 

 rather woody base or root, alternate oblong and sessile leaves, and greenish- 

 white flowers in terminal or axillary small umbel-1 ke clusters. (Name from 

 /cop?, hair, and avbpes, for stamens, in allusion to the hairs attached to the anthers.) 



