CLASS IV. ORDER I. 63 



has one or two pairs of small oblong leaves. — Said by Pursh to 

 grow upon the White mountains. 



69. ALCHEMILLA. 

 Alchemilla alpina. Lady's mantle. 



Leaves digitate, serrate at the end, white and silky 

 underneath. 



Leaves five parted, the lobes or leafets serrate at the extremity, 

 covered underneath with a white satiny down. Stem erect, 

 flowers panicled, calyx silken on the outside. — On the high 

 mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. — Pursh. — July. 



DIGYNIA. 



70. HAMAMELIS. 

 Hamamelis Virginica. L, Witch hazel. 



The variegated appearance of the American forest during the 

 months of autumn, has been repeatedly noticed by travellers. 

 Among the crimson and yellow hues of the falling leaves there 

 is no more remarkable object than the "Witch hazel, in the mo- 

 ment of parting with its foliage, putting forth a profusion of 

 gaudy, yellow blossoms, and giving to November the counter- 

 feited appearance of spring. It is a bushy tree, sending up a 

 number of oblique trunks, about the size of a man's arm or 

 larger. The leaves are oval or obovate, loosely waved or toothed 

 upon the margin. Flowers sessile, about three together, pro- 

 ceeding from a gemmaceous involucre. Calyx double, pubes- 

 cent, the first of three roundish, short, bracteiform leafets ; the 

 second larger, of four ovate, acute, recurved segments. Petals 

 four, very long, linear, transversely corrugated, in the bud rolled 

 inward. Nectaries four scales, wedge shaped, truncate, adnate 

 to the claws of the petals. Filaments erect, clavate, with ad- 

 nate anthers opening on each side by oval, concave, vertical 

 valves like doors. Germs two, ovate, hairy, with divergent 

 styles. Capsule roundish, its lower half invested by the persist- 

 ent calyx with four recurved points ; its upper half naked, with 

 a partial fissure and two short recurved points. Nuts two, 

 double shelled, the outer shells growing together, bursting elas- 

 tically at top ; inner shells free, oblong, glossy, and blackish ; 

 seed or kernel oblong, the corculum very distinct and nearly as 



