SANTALACE-fi. (SANDALWOOD FAMILY.) 381 



. 1. SIIEPIIERDIA, Nutt. SHEPHISRDIA. 



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 ovaiy (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 SIIEPHEEDIA.) 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-BERRY of Upper Missouri, which has 

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

 cultivated for ornament. 



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

 within our northwestern limits. 



ORDER 96. SANTALACE-dE. (SANDALWOOD FAMILY.) 



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

 the bud, its tube coherent with the 1-cetted 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 (indehiscenC) 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 their 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-like clusters. (Name from 

 /. liair, and avftpes, fw stamens, in allusion to the hairs attached to the anthers.) 



