EMPETRACE^E. (CROWBERRT FAMILY.) 398 



styles 3, thick, awl-shaped, recurved, stigmatic down their whole length inside 

 Pod globular, 3-horned, 3-celled, splitting into 3 at length 2-valved 2-seeded 

 carpels. Nearly glabrous, low and procumbent, perennial herbs, with matted 

 creeping rootstocks, and alternate, ovate or obovate, coarsely toothed leaves, 

 narrowed at the base into a petiole. Flowers each 1 -3-bracted, the upper ones 

 staminate, a few fertile ones at the base, unpleasantly scented : sepals greenish : 

 filaments white (the size and thickness of the latter giving the name, from 

 naxvs, thick, and avdpa, used for stamen). 



1. P. procumbens, Michx. Stems (6' -9' long) bearing several ap- 

 proximate leaves at the summit on slender petioles, and a few many-flowered 

 spikes along the base ; the intervening portion naked, or with a few small scales. 

 Woods ; mountains of Kentucky, W. Virginia, and southward. March, April. 



KiciNus coMMtNis, the CASTOR-OIL PLANT, and Btixus SEMPERYIRENS, 

 the Box, are cultivated representatives of this order. 



MERCURIALIS AKNUA, of Europe, has been found growing spontaneously 

 in Boston, and in Charleston, S. Carolina. 



ORDER 103. EMPETRACE^E. (CROWBERRY FAMILY.) 



Low shrubby evergreens, with the foliage, aspect, and compound pollen of 

 Heaths, and the drupaceous fruit of Arctostaphylos, but the stigmas, &c. of 

 Euphorbiaceae : probably an apetalous and polygamous or dioecious de- 

 generate form of Ericacese, comprising three genera, two of which occur 

 within the limits of this work, and the third in Georgia, &c. 



1. EMPETRUUI, Tourn. CROWBERRT. 



Flowers polygamous, scattered and solitary in the axils of the leaves (incon- 

 spicuous), scaly-bracted. Calyx of 3 spreading and somewhat petal-like sepals. 

 Stamens 3. Style very short : stigma 6 - 9-rayed. Fruit a berry -like drupe, 

 with 6-9 seed-like nutlets ; each containing an erect anatropous seed. Embryo 

 terete, in the axis of copious albumen, with a slender inferior radicle and verv 

 small cotyledons. (An ancient name, from ev, upon, and Trerpos, a rock.) 



1. E. nigruiit, L. (BLACK CROWBERRY.) Procumbent and trailing; 

 leaves linear-oblong, scattered ; fruit black. Alpine summits of the moun- 

 tains of New England and N. New York ; L. Superior, and northward. (Eu.) 



2. CORE MA, Don. (BROOM-CROWBERRT.) 



Flowers dioecious or polygamous, collected in terminal heads, each in the axil 

 of a scaly bract,, and with 5 or 6 thin and scarious imbricated bractlets, but no 

 proper calyx. Stamens 3, rarely 4, with long filaments. Style slender, 3- (4 -5-) 

 cleft: stigmas narrow, often toothed. Drupe small, with 3 (rarely 4-5) nut- 

 lets. Seed, &c. as in the last. Diffusely much-branched little shrubs, with 

 scattered or nearly whorled narrowly linear leaves. (Name Kopypa, a feroom, 

 from the bushy aspect. ) 



