THYMEL^AGEJE. 



Ill 



Btamens, arranged in two verticils alternating with the teeth of the 

 perianth, are inserted towards the lower part of the perianth and 

 exserted. The ovary is accompanied by a small annular disk 

 and surmounted by a style attenuated towards the summit. The 

 fruit is a naked berry. The leaves are alternate, caducous, and the 

 flowers, which blossom in early spring, are axillary and solitary or in 

 few-flowered cymes. 



Daphne (fig. 81-85) has also hermaphrodite and tetramerous 

 flowers. The periantb, green or petaloid, has the form of a tube or 



Daphne Mezereum. 



Fig. 82. Flower (f). 



Fig. 83. Long, 

 sect, of flower. 



Fig. 84. Fruit (f). Fig. 81. Floriferous branch. 



Fig. 85. Long. sect, of fruit. 



funnel, and its limb consists of four folioles, disposed in the bud in 

 imbricate-alternate prefloration. As in the preceding genera, the 

 throat is destitute of scales, and the androecium is formed of eight 

 stamens, sessile or nearly so, of which four superposed to the sepals 

 are taller. The gynaecium is surrounded by a disk generally very 

 short, and the ovary is surmounted by a style nearly apical, with 

 dilated summit, spherical or ovoid, covered with stigmatic papillae. 

 In Edgeworthia^ which has been generically distinguished, it is 

 longer and claviform in its stigmatiferous portion. The fruit is a 

 naked berry, with a pericarp sometimes thin ; it contains one seed 

 with albumen thin or nil. Daphne consists of shrubs from the 



