26 ERICACE^. Vaccinium. 



young. — Fl. Dan. t. 80. Oxycoccus palustris, Pers. I.e. 0. vulgaris, Pursh, 1. c. SchoUera 

 Oxyroccus, Roth. — Sphagnous swamps, around the subarctic zone, from Newfoundland 

 and Labrador south to mountains of Pennsylvania, to the Saskatchewan district, and to 

 Alaska. (Greenland to Japan.) 

 V. macrocarpon, Ait. (Large Amer. Cranberry.) Stems stouter, 1 to 4 feet long, 

 and with more ascending branches : leaves oblong or narrowly oval, obtuse, a third to half 

 inch long ; the margins less revolute ; veins evident : pedicels several and somewhat race- 

 mose, the firmer scaly bracts separating as the bud develops above into a proliferous leafy 

 shoot : filaments one third the length of the anthers : berry ovoid or oblong, half to three- 

 fourths inch long (variable in shape and size, much larger than in the preceding). — Ait. 

 Kew. ed. 1, ii. 13, t. 7 ; Bot. Mag. t. 2806 ; Emerson, Mass. Rep. ed. 2, t. 30. V. Oxycoccits, 

 var. oblong if alius, Michx. 1. c. Oxycoccus macrocaqms, Pursh, 1. c. ; Bart. Fl. i. t. 17. — Bogs, 

 &c., Newfoundland to N. Carolina, through Northern States and Canada to Saskatchewan. 

 Said by Hooker to abound at the mouth of Columbia River ? (Japan 1) 



3. CHI6GENES, Salisb. Creeping Snowberry. (From ;fjcor, snow, 

 and yf'vog, offspring, in allusion to the snow-white berries.) — Flowers very small 

 and inconspicuous, solitary in the axils of the small Thyme-like leaves, ou short 

 nodding peduncles ; a pair of large ovate persistent bractlets under the calyx. 

 Tube of the latter adnate to the lower half of the ovary, or rather more ; the 

 limb 4-parted. Corolla little exceeding the calyx, 4-cleft, greenish-white. Sta- 

 mens 8, included, inserted on an 8-toothed disk : filaments very short and broad : 

 cells of the anther ovate-oblong, separate, neither awned on the back nor pro- 

 duced into tubes, but each minutely 2-pointed at the apex, and opening by a large 

 chink down to the middle or lower. Style columnar. Berry globular, crowned 

 by the 4 short calyx teeth, largely inferior, the calyx-tube being now almost 

 wholly adnate. Seeds rather numerous, obliquely obovate, with a close and firm 

 coriaceous minutely reticulated coat. — Genus naturally related rather to Gaultheria 

 and Pernettya than to Vaccinium^ except in the adnation of the calyx. 



C. hispidtlla, Torr. & Gray. A slender trailing or creeping evergreen, with the habit 

 of Cranberry, the aroma and taste of Wintergreen or Sweet Birch : filiform brandies 

 strigose-hispid : leaves ovate, with rounded or obtuse base and revolute margins, thick- 

 coriaceous, 2 to 4 lines long, short-petioled, glabrous, except tlie scattered rusty bristles of 

 the margins and lower surface: bractlets foliaceous and al/nost equalling the flower: 

 white berry also minutely bristly, slighlly spicy but otherwise insipid, ripe late in summer. 

 —Torr. Fl. N. Y. i. 450, t. 68 ; Gray, Man. ed. 1, 262. C. serpyUifolla, Salisb. Trans. Hort. 

 Soc. Lond. ii. 94. Vaccinium Idspidulum, L. (excl. syn.) ; Michx. Fl. i. 228, t. 23. Arbutus 

 JUiformis, Lam. Diet. i. 228. A. t/iynii/olia. Ait. Kew. ed. 1, ii. 72. Oxycoccus hispiclulus, Pers. ; 

 Nutt. Gen. i. 251. Gaultheria serpyUifolla, Pursh, Fl. i. 283, t. 13 (bad). G. hlsphlula, Muhl. 

 Cat. ; Hook. Fl. ii. 36. Glycyphi/lla hlspldula, Raf. in Am. Month. Mag. 1819. Plialerocarpus 

 serpy/Jlfohus, G. Don, Syst. iii. 841 ; Dunal in DC. 1. c. 577 ; Klotzsch in Linn. xxiv. 67 (char, 

 bad). — Spliagnous swamps and damp woods, Newfoundland to tlie nortliern Rocky Moun- 

 tains, and in tlie Atlantic States south to the cooler parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 

 thence along the Alleghanies to North Carolina. 

 C. Japonica, a second species (C. hlspldula, Miquel), the representative in Japan, has 



obovate or oval leaves, all acute or tapering at base. 



4. Arbutus, Toum. (Classical Latin name.) — Low trees or shrubs (of 

 S. Europe and W. America from Oregon to Mexico) ; with evergreen and cori- 

 aceous alternate petiolate leaves, and white or flesh-colored small flowers in a 

 terminal cluster of racemes or panicles. Bracts and bractlets scaly. Calyx small, 

 5-parted. Corolla from globular to ovate. Ovary on a hypogynous disk : ovules 

 crowded on a fleshy placenta projecting from the inner angle of each cell. Style 

 rather long : stigma obtuse. Berry more or less eatable. 



