MACLOSKIE : CORIARIACEyE. 557 



Family 60. EMPETRACE.E. Crowberry Family. 



Low, evergreen, heath-like shrubs, with small, narrow, subsessile, 

 crowded, shining, imbricated leaves, revolute at the margins ; and flowers 

 small, dioecious or polygamous, axillary or terminal. Sepals 3. Petals 2-3, 

 or none. Male flowers with 2-4, usually 3, stamens. Ovary sessile, 2-sev- 

 eral-celled, style cleft similarly. Dnipe berry-like. Seeds with endosperm. 



Species 5, in temperate and cold regions, and on mountains. (Corema 

 is confined to S. United States.) 



EMPETRUM Linn. 



Flowers in the upper axils. Petals 3, purplish. Drupe black or red, 

 with 6-9 nutlets. 



Species 2, R. nigrum L. in Eurasia and N. Amer., with black, rarely 

 white fruit, and the following : 



E. RUBRUM Vahl. (E. nigrum L. var. rubrum DC.) 



Drupe red. Pubescence on young leaves stronger than in E. nigrum. 



(Tristan d'Acunha; Mts. of Chili) ; Falklands ; S. Patagon., by Hatcher 

 in the Cordilleras, in fruit Feb. 16, "quail and partridge feed on its ber- 

 ries." W. Patagon.; Magellan, Fuegia to Cape Horn. "Over the 

 whole steppe region, and often in the rainy forest region and on the 

 mountains." (Dusen.) 



Family 6 1 . CORIARIACE^E. 



Smooth shrubs, with angular branches, opposite or 3-whorled, exstipu- 

 late leaves, and small, 5-merous, hypogy nous flowers, having distinct, small 

 and fleshy petals. Stamens 10 ; ovary 5-lobed (sometimes lo-lobed), be- 

 coming indehiscent, cocci separated by the persisting calyx-leaves. Styles 

 5. Cocci i -seeded, with very scanty endosperm. 



Species about 8, scattered from the Mediterranean through Nepal, China 

 to Japan ; and New Zealand and neighboring islands ; also in S. Amer. 

 from Mexico to Patagonia. 



CORIARIA L. 



Only genus, fig. in Eng. & Prantl, iii, 5, p. 128. Also fossil species. 

 C. thymifoKa Humb. in New Zealand. Kermadec and Peru to Mexico ; 

 other allied forms in Peru and New Zealand, in alpine regions. 



