LAURACEAE (LAUREL FAMILY) 413 



5. BERBERIS [Tourn.] L. BARBERRY 



Sepals 6, roundish, with 2-6 bractlets outside. Petals 6, obovate, concave, 

 with two glandular spots inside above the short claw. Stamens (5. Stigma cir- 

 cular, depressed. Fruit a 1-few-seeded berry. Seeds erect, with a crustaceous 

 integument. Shrubs, with yellow wood and inner bark, yellow flowers in 

 drooping racemes, sour berries, and 1-9-foliolate leaves. Stamens irritable. 

 (Derived from Berberys, the Arabic name of the fruit.) 



1. B. canadSnsis Mill. (AMERICAN B.) Leaves repandly toothed, the teeth 

 less bristly-pointed ; racemes few-flowered ; petals notched at the apex; berries 

 ovoid; otherwise as in the next. Alleghenies of Va., south w. and westw. ; not 

 in Canada. June. Shrub 3-9 dm. high. 



2. B. VULGARIS L. (COMMON B.) Leaves scattered on the fresh shoots of 

 the season, mostly reduced to sharp triple or branched spines, from the axils 

 of which the next season proceed rosettes or fascicles of obovate-oblong closely 

 bristle-toothed leaves (the short petiole jointed !), and drooping many-flowered 

 racemes ; petals entire ; berries ellipsoid, scarlet. Thickets and waste grounds 

 in e. and s. N. E., where it has become thoroughly wild ; elsewhere occasionally 

 spontaneous. May, June. (Nat. from Eu.) 



LAURACEAE (LAUREL FAMILY) 



Aromatic trees or shrubs, with alternate simple leaves mostly marked with 

 minute pellucid dots, and flowers with a regular calyx of 4 or colored sepals, 

 imbricated in 2 rows in the bud, free from the \-celled and l-ovuled ovary, and 

 mostly fewer than the stamens; anthers opening by 2 or 4 uplifted valves. 

 Flowers clustered. Style single. Fruit a 1-seeded berry or drupe. Seed 

 anatropous, suspended, with no albumen, filled by the large almond-like embryo. 



* Flowers perfect, panicled ; stamens 12, three of them sterile, three with extrorse anthers. 



1. Persea. Calyx persistent. Anthers 4-celled. Evergreen. 



* * Flowers dioecious, or nearly so ; stamens in the sterile flowers 9 ; leaves deciduous. 



2. Sassafras. Flowers in corymb- or umbel-like racemes. Anthers 4-celled, 4-valved. 



3. Litsea. Flowers few in involucrate umbels. Anthers 4-celled, 4-valved. 



4. Benzoin. Flowers in umbel-like clusters. Anthers 2-celled, 2-valved. 



1. PERSEA [Plum.] Gaertn. f. 



Flowers perfect, with a 6-parted calyx, persistent at the base of the berry-like 

 fruit. Stamens 12, in four rows, the 3 of the innermost row sterile and gland- 

 like, the rest bearing 4-celled anthers (i.e. with each proper cell divided trans- 

 versely into two), opening by as many uplifted valves ; the anthers of 3 stamens 

 turned outward, the others introse. Trees, with persistent entire leaves, and 

 small panicled flowers. (An ancient name of some oriental tree.) 



1. P. Borbbnia (L.) Spreng. (RED BAY.) Tree of medium size ; branch- 

 lets early glabrate ; leaves oblong, soon shining above, pale and at length gla- 

 brate beneath ; common peduncle about equaling the petiole; berry dark blue, 

 on a red stalk. (P. carolinensis Nees.) Swamps, s. Del. to Fla. and Tex. 



2. P. pubSscens (Pursh) Sarg. Small tree ; branchlets velvety ; lower sur- 

 face of lance-oblong leaves retaining more or less pubescence ; peduncles con- 

 siderably longer than the petioles. Swamps, Fla. to N. C.; and reported from 

 s. Va. 



2. SASSAFRAS Nees 



Flowers dioecious, with a 6-parted spreading calyx ; the sterile kind with 9 

 stamens inserted on the base of the calyx in 3 rows, the 3 inner with a pair of 

 stalked glands at the base of each ; anthers 4-celled, 4-valved ; fertile flowers 



