225 



N. Ord. THYMELACE^J. Lindl., Yeg. K., p. 530; Le Maout & Dec., 



p. 656; Baill., Hist. PL, vi. 



Genus Daphne,* Linn. Bail!., Hist. PI., vi, p. 133. Species 

 about 40, natives of the northern half of the old world. 



225. Daphne Mezereum,t Linn., Sp. Plan^., ed. 1, p. 356 (1753). 



Mezereon. 



Syn. Mezereum officinarum, C. A. Meyer. 



Figures. Woodville, t. 245; Hayne, iii, t. 43; Steph. & Ch., t. 65; 

 Nees, t. 125; Berg & Sch., t. 126; Syme, E., Bot., viii, t. 1246; 

 Reichenb., Ic. PL, Germ., xi, t. 556; Nees, Gen. PI. Germ.; Baill., 

 1. c., figs. 81-85. 



Description. A small, slender, straggling shrub, from 1 to 4 

 feet in height, with an erect stem and few ascending branches 

 covered with very smooth, silvery-grey bark and terminated by 

 large buds, the young branchlets with a fine white tomentum ; 

 the bark becomes darker coloured on the root. Leaves deciduous, 

 alternate, nearly sessile, spreading, 2 3 inches long, lanceolate, 

 rather blunt, entire, smooth, dark green. Flowers in small 

 clusters of 2 or 3, sessile on the branches of the previous year and 

 produced from buds in the axils of the fallen leaves ; a few small, 

 ovate, smooth bracts at the base of the flowers. Perianth gamo- 

 phyllous, tubular "below, limb nearly J inch wide, spreading, 

 deeply cleft into 4 ovate, acute or bluntish, imbricate segments, 

 purplish-pink, darker and more red on the outside, tube finely 

 hairy externally, smooth within. Stamens 8, inserted in two 

 alternating rows just within the throat of the perianth-tube, 

 filaments very short, anthers small, 2 -celled, yellow. Ovary ovoid, 

 tapering at both ends, about half as long as the perianth -tube within 

 which it is quite enclosed though entirely free from it, one-celled, 

 with a single pendulous anatropous ovule, style very short, stigma 

 capitate. Fruit fleshy, ovoid, about f inch long, slightly pointed, 



* The classical da^vrj, sacred to Apollo, is Laurus nobilis, L. ; the name was 

 given to this genus from the laurel-like foliage of some species. 



f Mezereum, a mediaeval name, altered from the Persian Mazariyun, which 

 was applied to a species of Daphne. 



