Dirca. TIIYMELEACE.E. 61 



1. UMBELLULABIA, Nutt. Mountain Laurel. Si'ick-Tree. 



Flowers perfect, in pedunculate umbels wliicli are included Lefore expansion in 

 involucres consisting of 4 broad caducous bracts : calyx deciduous, G-parted : stamens 

 9, inserted on the throat in 3 rows, the 3 inner with a fleshy 2-lobed stipitate gland 

 on each side of the base, alternating with 3 ligulate staminodia ; anthers 4-celled, 

 4-valved, the outer intvorse, the inner extrorse : stigma dilated, somewhat lobed : 

 drupe subglobose, subtended by the thickened base of the calyx. — Arborescent, 

 with alternate petioled thick and evergreen leaves, very odoriferous : inflorescence 

 terminal or axillary. A single species. — Bentli. & Hook. Gen. PI. iii. 162. 



1. U. Californica, Nutt. A handsome shrub or tree, 10 to 70 feet high or 

 more, the young branches, petioles, and inflorescence somewdiat puberulent : leaves 

 "reen and shining, lanceolate-oblong, acute at each end or sometimes rounded at 

 base, 2 to 4 inches long, short-petioled : peduncles in an apparently terminal panicle 

 or solitary in the upper axils, 6 to 12 lines long, 6 - 10-flowered ; involucral bracts 

 ovate, imbricated ; pedicels 1 to 5 lines long, usually bracteate at base : sepals yel- 

 lowish green, U to 2| lines long, oblong to ovate; stamens included: drujies on 

 short stout axillary or"'terrainal i)eduncles, solitary or 2 or 3 together, ovate-elliptical 

 or globose, nearly an inch long, becoming dark purple with thin pulp and stone. — 

 Syiva, i. 87. Lauras regia, Dougl. Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. 127. Tetranthera Cali- 

 fornica, Hook. & Arn. Bot. Beechey, 159. Meissner, DC. Prodr. xv\ 193; New- 

 berry, Pacif. E. Rep. vi. 24, fig. 3. ^ Oreodaphue Californica, Nees, Syst. Laur. 463 ; 

 Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 5320. Driniophyllum jxiuciflorum, Nutt. Sylva, i. 85, t. 22. 



From Douglas County, Oregon {Dourihts), to San Diego, flowering in JIarcli and April, the 

 fruit ripening in July aiid ]ier.sistent uniil the next year. In the more southern localities and in 

 the Sierra Nevada it rarelv exceids 10 or 20 feet in height, but northward it becomes a large tree 

 4 to 6 feet in diameter anil l()(i feet high or more, the timber very handsome and valuable, much 

 used for ornamental wainscoting and furnishing. The foliage is exceedingly acrid, exhaling when 

 bruised a very pungent aromatic effluvium which excites sneezing. The tree is known by various 

 names, as California Olive, California Laurel, Cajeput, etc. The inflorescence is at first appar- 

 ently terminal but usually becomes axillary by the prolongation of the branch. Few of the Mow- 

 ers set fruit, rareh' more than cue or two in a cluster. 



Order LXXXII. THYMELEACE^. 



Shrubs or small trees, distinguished by a very tough fibrous inner bark, perfect 

 flowers, a gamosepalous petaloid perianth bearing on its tube usually twice as many 

 stamens as there are lobes, introrse anthers dehiscing longitudinally, and a pistil of a 

 single carpel, the ovary usually containing a single anatropous ovule suspended from 

 the summit of the cell. Fruit usually a berry : embryo filling the seed, with plano- 

 convex cotyledons. — Flowers axillary or terminal, often fascicled. 



An order of nearly 40 genera and over 300 species, largely of the wai'm extra-tropical regions of 

 Africa and Australia, remarkable for the toughness of the bark and burning acridity of the juice. 

 Various species have fui-nished material for cordage and paper, and othei-s have been employed for 

 medicinal purposes or for dyeing ; some, as Daphne Mezercum, are cultivated for ornament. The 

 following is the only North American genus. 



1. DIBCA, Linn. Lkatueuwood. 

 Flowers perfect : perianth light-yellow, glabrous, tubular-funnel form, the limb 

 oblicpiely truncate, 4-lobed or repandly toothed. Stamens 8, attarhcl m-ar the 



