EBENACE^E. (EBONY FAMILY.) 307 



3. PRtNOS, L. Parts of the sterile flowers in fours, five$, or sixes, those of the 

 fertile flowers commonly in sixes (rarely in fives, sevens, or eights) : nutlets smooth 

 and even : shrubs. 



# Leaves deciduous : flowers in sessile clusters, or the fertile solitary : fruit bright red. 



8. I. verticillata, Gray. (BLACK ALDER. WINTERBERRY.) Leaves 

 obovate, oval, or wedge-lanceolate, pointed, acute at the base, serrate, downy on 

 the veins beneath ; flowers all very short-pedunded. (Prinos verticillatus, L. ) Low 

 grounds : common. May, June. 



9. I. laevigata, Gray. (SMOOTH WINTERBERRY.) Leaves lanceolate or 

 oblong-lanceolate, pointed at both ends, appressed-serrulate, shining above, be- 

 neath mostly glabrous ; sterile flowers long-pedunded. (Prinos laevigatus, Pursh.) 

 Wet grounds, Maine to the mountains of Virginia. June. Fruit larger 

 than in the last, ripening earlier in the autumn. 



# # Leaves coriaceous, evergreen, shining above, oflen black-dotted beneath : fruit black. 



10. I. glabra, Gray. (!NKBERRY.) Leaves wedge-lanceolate or oblong, 

 sparingly toothed towards the apex, smooth; peduncles (' long) of the sterile 

 flowers 3 - 6-flowered, of the fertile 1 -flowered ; calyx-teeth rather blunt. (Pri- 

 nos glaber, L.) Sandy grounds, Cape Ann, Massachusetts, to Virginia and 

 southward near the coast. June. Shrub 2 - 3 high. 



2. NEMOPANTHES, Kaf. MOUNTAIN HOLLY. 



Flowers polygamo-dicecious. Calyx in the sterile flowers of 4 - 5 minute de- 

 ciduous teeth; in the fertile ones obsolete. Petals 4-5, oblong-linear, spread- 

 ing, distinct. Stamens 4 - 5 : filaments slender. Drupe with 4-5 bony nutlets, 

 light red. A much-branched shrub, with ash-gray bark, alternate and oblong 

 deciduous leaves on slender petioles, entire, or slightly toothed, smooth. Flowers 

 on long and slender axillary peduncles, solitary, or sparingly clustered. (Name 

 said by the author to mean " flower with a filiform peduncle," therefore prob- 

 ably composed of vrjfjLa, a thread, irovs, afoot, and avOos, a flower.) 



1. N. Canad6nsis, DC. (Hex Canadensis, Michx.) Damp cold woods, 

 from the mountains of Virginia to Maine, Wisconsin, and northward : common 

 at the north. May. 



ORDER 59. EBENACEJE. (EBONY FAMILY.) 



Trees or shrubs, with alternate entire leaves, and polygamous regular flow- 

 ers which have a calyx free from the 3 - 12-celled ovary; the stamens 2 -4 

 times as many as the lobes of the corolla, oflen in pairs before them, their 

 anthers turned inwards, and the fruit a several-celled berry. Ovules 1 or 2, 

 suspended from the summit of each cell. Seeds anatropous, mostly single 

 in each cell, large and flat, with a smooth coriaceous integument ; the 

 embryo shorter than the hard albumen, with a long radicle and flat cotyl- 

 edons. Styles wholly or partly separate. Wood hard and dark-colored. 

 No milky juice. A small family, chiefly tropical, represented here only 

 by the Persimmon. 



