426 LORANTHACE^E. (MISTLETOE FAMILY.) 



2. PYRULARIA, Michx. Oil-nut. Buffalo-nut. 



Flowers dioecious or polygamous. Calyx 4-5-cleft, the lobes recurved; a 

 tuft of hairs at their base in the male flowers. Stamens 4 or 5, on very short 

 filaments, alternate with as many rounded glands. Fertile flowers with a pear- 

 shaped ovary invested by the adherent tube of the calyx, naked at the flat sum- 

 mit : disk with 5 glands : style short and thick : stigma capitate-flattened. Fruit 

 fleshy and drupe-like, pear-shaped; the globose endocarp thin. Embryo small : 

 albumen very oily. — Shrubs or trees, with alternate short-petioled and decidu- 

 ous leaves ; the small greenish flowers in short and simple spikes or racemes. 

 (Name a diminutive of Pyrus, from the fruit, which in the original species looks 

 like a small pear.) 



I. P. oleifera, Gray. Shrub straggling (3° -12° high), minutely downy 

 when young, at length nearly glabrous ; leaves obovate-oblong, acute or pointed 

 at both ends, soft, very veiny, minutely pellucid-punctate ; spike small and few- 

 flowered, terminal; calyx 5-cleft. (P. pubera, Michx. ; a little older than the 

 other specific name, but much less appropriate. Hamiltbnia oleifera, Muhl.) — 

 Rich woods, mountains of Pennsylvania, and southward through the Allegha- 

 nies. May. — Whole plant imbued with an acrid oil, especially the fruit, which 

 is an inch long. 



Order 92. I.ORANTHACE.E. (Mistletoe Family.) 



Shrubby plants with coriaceous greenish foliage, parasitic on trees, repre- 

 sented in the northern temperate zone chiefly by the Mistletoe and its 

 near allies ; distinguished from the preceding family more by the parasitic 

 growth and habit, and by the more reduced flowers, than by essential 

 characters : represented by an American genus nearly allied to Viscum, or 

 true Mistletoe, viz. 



1. PHORADENDRON, Nutt. False Mistletoe. 



Flowers dioecious, in short and catkin-like jointed spikes, usually several under 

 each short and fleshy bract or scale, and sunk in the joint. Calyx globular, 3- 

 (rarely 2-4-) lobed : in the staminate flowers a sessile anther is borne on the 

 base of each lobe, and is transversely 2-celled, each cell opening by a pore or 

 slit : in the fertile flowers the calyx-tube adheres to the ovary : stigma sessile, 

 obtuse. Berry 1 -seeded, pulpy. Embryo small, half imbedded in the summit 

 of mucilaginous albumen. — Yellowish-green woody parasites on the branches 

 of trees, with jointed much-branched stems, thick and firm persistent leaves (or 

 only scales in their place), and axillary small spikes of flowers. (Name com- 

 posed of <P(op, a thief, and Sivbpov, tree; because these plants steal their food 

 from the trees they grow upon.) 



1. P. flavesceilS, Nutt. (American Mistletoe.) Leaves obovate or 

 oval, somewhat petioled, longer than the spikes in their axils, yellowish ; berries 

 white. (Viscum flavescens, Pursh.) — New Jersey to Illinois and southward, 

 on various deciduous-leaved trees. 



