388 THE DAPHNE FAMILY. [Daphne. 



tuft or shoot of narrow-oblong or lanceolate, deciduous leaves, about 

 2 or 3 inches long. Before these leaves are fully out, the flowers 

 appear in clusters of 2 or 3 along the preceding year's shoot ; they are 

 purple and sweet-scented. Perianth-tube 3 or 4 lines long, and slightly 

 hairy, the lobes rather shorter. Berries red. 



In woods, chiefly in hilly districts, spread over nearly the whole of 

 Europe and Eussian Asia to the Arctic regions. In Britain, however, 

 believed to be truly wild only in some of the southern counties of 

 England. Fl. early spring. 



2. D. Laureola, Linn. (fig. 881). Spurge Laurel. An erect, glabrous 

 shrub, of 2 to 4 feet, with few erect branches, and evergreen, oblong or 

 lanceolate leaves, crowded towards their summits. Flowers in clusters 

 or very short racemes of 3 to 5 in the axils of the leaves, rather smaller 

 than in D. Mezereum, green and scentless, and accompanied by more 

 conspicuous bracts. Berries bluish-black. 



In woods, in southern and western Europe, scarcely extending into 

 Germany. Not uncommon in England, doubtfully indigenous in southern 

 Scotland, and unknown in Ireland. FL spring. 



The large and important tropical family of Laurinece, remarkable 

 amongst Monochlamydce for the peculiar mode in which the anthers open 

 (like those of the Barberry), is represented in our gardens by the Bay- 

 Sweet (Laurus nobttis), which is the Laurel of the ancients and of poets. 



LXV. EL-ffiAGNACE^:. THE EL.EAGNUS FAMILY. 



Shrubs or trees, more or less covered with minute, silvery or 

 brown, scurfy scales, differing from Thymeleaceoe in the erect, 

 not pendulous, ovule and seed. 



An Order of very few genera, dispersed over the northern hemisphere. 

 The principal one, Elceagnus, has not the clustered male flowers so 

 peculiar in our Hippophae. One or two of its species, from south-eastern 

 Europe and Asia, are not uncommon in our shrubberies. 



I. HIPPOPHAE. HIPPOPHAE. 



Shrubs or small trees, distinguished as a genus by their direcious 

 flowers ; the males in axillary clusters, with a perianth of 2 small seg- 

 ments and 4 stamens ; the females solitary, with a tubular perianth, 

 minutely 2-lobed, which becomes succulent, forming a berry round the 

 true fruit. The reduced perianth and clustered flowers show consider- 

 able affinity with Myrica. 



1. H. rhamnoides, Linn. (fig. 882). Sallow-Thorn, Sea Buckthorn. 

 A willow-like shrub, covered with a scaly scurf, very close and silvery 

 on the under side of the leaves, thin or none on the upper side, dense 

 and more or less rusty on the young shoots and flowers ; the axillary 

 shoots often ending in a stout prickle. Leaves alternate, linear, and 

 entire. Male flowers very small, in little clusters resembling catkins. 

 Females crowded, although solitary in each axil ; the perianth about 2 

 lines long, contracted at the top, with the style shortly protruding, form- 

 ing when in fruit a small yellowish or brown berry. 



