I 



OASTANEACEJE. 



239 



Faff us betuloides. 



with stigmatic papillae. It is surrounded by a superior calyx of six 

 biseriate, imbricate folioles, ordinarily persistent to the summit of 

 the fruit. The latter is dry, tri- 

 angular, with the angles often pro- 

 duced to narrow rigid vertical wings. 

 It is enclosed either alone or with 

 two or three others, in an accrescent, 

 woody involucre, covered externally 

 with projections variable in size, 

 form and consistence, and finally 

 opening in its upper part by four 

 vertical clefts. In each achene is 

 found one seed ^ the embryo of which, 

 destitute of albumen, has a superior 

 radicle, partly covered by the base of 

 the cotyledons, 2 mostly fleshy, often 



folded back upon themselves.3 The Beeches are trees or shrubs 

 growing in the temperate or nearly cold regions of both hemispheres.* 

 Some attain great dimensions and resemble, in this respect, our 

 common Beech ; whilst those which in great number inhabit the 

 cold regions of the western coast of the most southern parts of South 

 America are often, in all their parts, reduced to the humblest dimen- 

 sions. The leaves are alternate, caducous^ or persistent, penninerved, 

 generally dentate, convex in the bud and often plicate along the 

 lateral nervures,'^ and accompanied by two lateral caducous stipules. 

 The flowers are precocious, generally axillary, sometimes solitary 

 and sometimes grouped at the summit of a common peduncle, in a 

 sort of capitule or short spike. Some fifteen species have been 

 described.^ 



Fig. 205. Female 

 flower (4i). 



Fig. 206. Long. 



sect, of female 



flower. 



^ Accompanied by abortive seeds. 



" Epigeous, foliaceous, in germination. 



^ They are probably flat in many small-leaved 

 species of the northern hemisphere. (J. Hook. 

 Fl. Antarct. ii. 123). 



"* Except in Africa. 



5 In sect. Eafagus (page 238, note 5). 



6 In sect. Nothnfagtis (A. DC. Prodr. 121). 



"* Hexj-.y, Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. xxii. p. i. t. 29. 

 The lateral nervures terminate in the hollows 

 between the teeth of the limb or even at the 

 teeth themselves. {A. DC. Mem. Gendve (1864), 

 loc. cit.), 



* FoRST. Comm. Goetting. ix. 45 {Betula). — 



DuHAM. Arbr. ed. 2, ii. 80, t. 24. — Michx. 

 Arb7. Amer. ii. 74, t. 9. — Schkuhr, Handb. t. 

 303. — Loud. Encycl. 907. — Hook. Journ. Bot, 

 ii. 147 ; Icon. t. 630, 631.— Waxgenh. Norda^ 

 mer. Solz. 80, fig. 65.— Reichb. Ic. Fl, Germ. t. 

 639.— SiBB. Bat. Verh. xii. 25. — Pospp. et Endl. 

 Nov. Gen. et Spec. ii. 68, t. 195-198.— Hook. f. 

 FL Antarct. ii. 346, t. 123, 124 ; Fl. Tasm. i. 

 348 ; Fl. N.^Zel. i. 229 ; Man. N.-Zeal. Fl. 249. 

 — Benth. Fl. Austral. \. 209.— C. Gay, Fl. Chil. 

 V. 387.— Phil. Zwncea, xxix. t. 45. — A. Gray, 

 Man. ed. 5, 455.— Chapm. Fl. S. Unit. St. 424. 

 — Gben. et GoDR. Fl.d^Fr. in. 114.— Walp. 

 Ann. i. 636 ; vii. 639 Lophozonia). 



