16 ADDISONIA 
It is usually propagated by seeds which must be sown shortly 
after maturity, as they soon lose their vitality; propagation may 
also be effected by layers, which root best in a peaty soil; green- 
wood cuttings under glass may also be resorted to. 
The genus comprises about seven species, natives of eastern 
North America and Asia. One other species, the hairy spice-bush, 
Benzoin melissaefolium, grows in a similar habitat in the south- 
eastern United States, 
The spice-bush is a shrub, sometimes attaining a height of twenty 
feet, with the stems erect or ascending, and having the bark smooth 
and the twigs slender. The foliage appears after the flowers, = 
leaves having stalks usually a half inch long or less. The blad 
are oval or elliptic to obovate, as much as five inches long and half 
as wide, and have the under surface paler; they are acute or short- 
acuminate at the apex, more — some of them rounded, and the 
base is narrowed. The fragrant yellow flowers are dioecious or 
polygamous, and appear before the leaves in sessile clusters which 
have at the base a deciduous involucre of four scales. ‘The perianth, 
about an eighth of an inch in diameter, consists of six parts; in the 
staminate flowers there are three series with three stamens each, 
the filaments of the inner series being i lobed and ae at 
the base; in the pistillate flowers there are twelve to eighteen 
staminodia and a glabrous ovary with a style of about equal length. 
The red fruit, a drupe, is sometimes nearly a half inch long and 
perhaps a quarter inch wide. 
GrorRGE V. NASH. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE, Fig. 1.—Branch with staminate flowers. Fig. 
2.—Staminate flower, <5. Fig. 3—Stamen of inner series, showing basal 
glands, X5. Fig. 4.—Stamen of outer series, X5. Fig. 5.—Branch with pistil- 
late flowers. Fig. 6.—Pistillate flower, x8, Fig. 7. =Staminodium, x8. 
Fig. 8.—Pistil, 8, Fig. 9.—Fruiting branch. 
