CYRILLACE^E 665 



disappearing in their second and third years, and bright reddish brown and marked by 

 numerous small elevated lenticels; or usually a small often almost prostrate shrub. Win- 

 ter-buds small, obtuse, covered with a thick coat of pale tomentum. Bark of the trunk 

 \'-%' thick, bright reddish brown, exfoliating in large plate-like scales. Wood hard, heavy, 



Fig. 600 



bright clear red, with thin pale sapwood of 8-10 layers of annual growth; valued and 

 largely used as fuel. The fruit is occasionally employed in the preparation of a cooling 

 beverage. 



Distribution. Sandy sterile soil along sea beaches, and bluffs in the immediate vicinity 

 of the ocean ; neighborhood of Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, California, to the 

 shores of Magdalena Bay, Lower California, and on the Santa Barbara and Cedros 

 islands; on the mainland usually shrubby, forming close impenetrable thickets; in more 

 sheltered situations and on the islands becoming arborescent; probably of its largest size 

 on the shores of Todos Santos Bay, Lower California. 



XXXII. CYRILLACE^;. 



Trees or shrubs, with small scaly buds and watery juice. Leaves alternate, entire, 

 subcoriaceous, without stipules, persistent or tardily deciduous. Flowers small, regular, 

 perfect, on slender bibracteolate pedicels, in terminal or axillary racemes; calyx 5-8-lobed, 

 persistent, the lobes imbricated in the bud; petals 5-8, hypogynous; stamens 5-10, hypogy- 

 nous, those opposite the petals shorter than the others; anthers oblong, introrse, 2-celled, 

 the cells laterally dehiscent, opening longitudinally; ovary 2-4-celIed; ovules suspended, 

 anatropous; raphe dorsal; micropyle superior. Fruit an indehiscent capsule. Seed sus- 

 pended; seed-coat membranaceous; albumen fleshy, radicle superior. 



A family confined to the warmer parts of America, with three genera, of which two are 

 represented by small trees in the southern states. 



CONSPECTUS OF THE GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Flowers in axillary racemes; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5 contorted in the bud; fruit without 

 wings, 2-celled, with 2 seeds in each cell. 1. Cyrilla. 



Flowers in terminal racemes; calyx 5-8-lobed; petals 5-8 imbricated in the bud; fruit 

 with 2-4 wings, 3 or rarely 4-celled, with 1 seed in each cell. 2. Cliftonia. 



