426 LORANTHACE^E. (MISTLETOE FAMILY.) 



2. PYRTJLARIA, Michx. OIL-NUT. BUFFALO-NUT. 



Flowers dioecious or polygamous. Calyx 4-5-cleft, the lobes recurved; a 

 tuft of hairs at their base in the male flowers. Stamens 4 or 5, on very short 

 filaments, alternate with as many rounded glands. Fertile flowers with a pear- 

 shaped ovary invested by the adherent tube of the calyx, naked at the flat sum- 

 mit : disk with 5 glands : style short and thick : stigma capitate-flattened. Fruit 

 fleshy and drupe-like, pear-shaped; the globose endocarp thin. Embryo small: 

 albumen very oily. Shrubs or trees, with alternate short-petioled and decidu- 

 ous leaves ; the small greenish flowers in short and simple spikes or racemes. 

 (Name a diminutive of Pyrus, from the fruit, which in the original species looks 

 like a small pear.) 



1. P. Qleifera, Gray. Shrub straggling (3 -12 high), minutely downy 

 when young, at length nearly glabrous ; leaves obovate-oblong, acute or pointed 

 at both ends, soft, very veiny, minutely pellucid-punctate ; spike small and few- 

 flowered, terminal; calyx 5-cleft. (P. pubera, Michx. ; a little older than the 

 other specific name, but much less appropriate. Hamiltonia oleifera, Muhl. ) 

 Rich woods, mountains of Pennsylvania, and southward through the Allegha- 

 nies. May. Whole plant imbued with an acrid oil, especially the fruit, which 

 is an inch long. 



ORDER 92. IX>RANTHACE.E. (MISTLETOE FAMILY.) 



Shrubby plants with coriaceous greenish foliage, parasitic on trees, repre- 

 sented in the northern temperate zone chiefly by the Mistletoe and its 

 near allies ; distinguished from the preceding family more by the parasitic 

 growth and habit, and by the more reduced flowers, than by essential 

 characters : represented by an American genus nearly allied to Viscum, or 

 true Mistletoe, viz. 



1. PHORADiENDRON, Nutt. FALSE MISTLETOE. 



Flowers dioecious, in short and catkin-like jointed spikes, usually several under 

 each short and fleshy bract or scale, and sunk in the joint. Calyx globular, 3- 

 (rarely 2-4-) lobed : in the staminate flowers a sessile anther is borne on the 

 base of each lobe, and is transversely 2-celled, each cell opening by a pore or 

 slit : in the fertile flowers the calyx-tube adheres to the ovary : stigma sessile, 

 obtuse. Berry 1-seeded, pulpy. Embryo small, half imbedded in the summit 

 of mucilaginous albumen. Yellowish-green woody parasites on the branches 

 of trees, with jointed much-branched stems, thick and firm persistent leaves (or 

 only scales in their place), and axillary small spikes of flowers. (Name com- 

 posed of <&>p, a thief, and Sev&pov, tree; because these plants steal their food 

 from the trees they grow upon.) 



1. P. flav^SCens, Nutt. (AMERICAN MISTLETOE.) Leaves obovate or 

 oval, somewhat petioled, longer than the spikes in their axils, yellowish ; berries 

 white. (Viscum flavescens, Pursh.) New Jersey to Illinois and southward, 

 on various deciduous-leaved trees. 



