HAMAMELIDACE.E 



369 



above loculicidally before the opening of the thin crustaceous inner layer. Seed oblong, 

 acute, suspended; testa crustaceous, chestnut brown, shining; forcibly discharged when 

 ripe by the contraction of the edges of the valves of the bony endocarp; embryo surrounded 

 by thick fleshy albumen; cotyledons foliaceous; hilum oblong, depressed. 



Hamamelis is confined to eastern North America and eastern Asia, with three American 

 and two or three Asiatic species; of the American species two are sometimes small trees, 

 and the third H. vernalis Sarg. is a shrub of southern Missouri, western Arkansas, and 

 eastern Oklahoma. 



The name is from ci/xa, at the same time with, and /urjXts an Apple-tree, and was applied 

 by the ancients to the Medlar or some similar tree. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ARBORESCENT SPECIES. 



Leaves smooth, conspicuously unsymmetrical at base; flowers autumnal. 



1. H. virginiana (A, C). 

 Leaves roughened by persistent tubercles, slightly unsymmetrical at base; flowers hiemal. 



2. H. macrophylk (C). 



1. Hamamelis virginiana L. 



Leaves obovate, acuminate, long-pointed or sometimes rounded at apex, very unequal 

 at base, the lower side rounded or subcordate, the upper usually cuneate and smaller, 

 irregularly and coarsely crenately lobed above the middle, entire or dentate below, when 



they unfold coated, especially on the lower surface of the midrib and veins and on the 

 petioles and stipules with stellate ferrugineous pubescence, at maturity membranaceous, 

 dull dark green and glabrous or pilose above, lighter colored and lustrous below, and pu- 

 bescent or puberulous on the stout midrib and 6 or 7 pairs of primary veins, 4 '-6' long, 

 2'-2|' wide; turning delicate yellow in the autumn; petioles slender, pubescent early in 

 the season, becoming glabrous '-!' in length; stipules lanceolate, acute, coriaceous, $'-$' 

 long. Flowers opening from the middle of September to the middle of November; calyx 

 orange-brown on the inner surface; petals bright yellow; ^'-f' long. Fruit ripening 

 when the flowers of the season are expanding, \' long, pubescent, dull orange-brown and 

 surrounded for half its length by the large persistent calyx; seed \' long. 



A tree, occasionally 20-25 high, with a short trunk 12'-14' in diameter, spreading 

 branches forming a broad open head, and slender flexible branchlets coated at first with 

 scurfy rusty stellate hairs, gradually disappearing during the summer, and in their first 

 winter glabrous or slightly puberulous, light orange-brown and marked by small white 

 dots, becoming in their second year dark or reddish brown; usually a stout shrub sending 



