CLASS Vin. ORDER!.] MENZIESIA. 555 



leaves. Stem round, smooth, branclied, trailing, blender, thread- 

 shaped, with dark shining reddish brown bark. Leaves numerous, 

 alternate, on short footstalks, ovale, or ovate acute, quite smooth, of a 

 dark shining green, pale and glaucous beneath, entire, with the mar- 

 gins more or less recurved, small, persistent, evergreen. Flowers 

 terminal, solitary, or somewliat clustered, the peduncles long, slender, 

 naked, bearing a solitary drooping flower. Cali/x with a short four- 

 cleft limb, with obtuse finely fringed segments. Corolla wheel-shaped, 

 in four deep oblong reflexed segments, of beautiful pink colour. 

 Stamens on slender downy filaments, with linear two celled anthers, 

 having a long beak bursting at the apex in a round hole. Style 

 slender, longer than the stamens, with an obtuse stigma. Fruit an 

 oblong or globose berry, at first pale green and spotted, becoming of a 

 fine deep red, many seeded. 



Habitat. — Turfy bogs among clear running water ; not unfrequent 

 in England, Scotland, and Ireland. 



Shrub ; flowering in June. 



Cranberries are generally known ; they are agreeably acid and 

 grateful to most people, especially when preserved with sugar, or 

 made into tarts, for which purpose in some parts of the country they 

 are collected and sold in the markets, and there are annually imported 

 into this country considerable quantities from Russia and Poland ; but 

 the Swedes, Smith says, have no idea of putting them to any other 

 use than to boil silver plate to its proper whiteness, the sharp acid of 

 the Cranberry corroding the external particles of the coppery alloy. 

 It is the badge of the Clan Grant, and one of the most graceful and 

 elegant little plants that adorn the boggy districts of our country, its 

 slender branches trailing amongst the mossy beds, especially those 

 of Sphagnum, and every now and then putting out its slender 

 branched roots to supply with nutriment its elongated branches. 



GENUS V. MENZIE'SIA.— Smith. Menziesia. 



Nat. Ord. ERi'CEiE. Jess. 



Gen. Char. Calyx in four or five deep segments. Corolla ventri- 



cose, with a spreading four or five toothed limb. Stamens eight 



to ten. Capsules four or five celled, many seeded, four or five 



valved, forming the dissepiments by their inflexed margins, and 



bursting between them. — Named in honour of Archibald Menzies, 



a Scotch Botanist. 



1. M. cmru'lea, Swartz. (Fig. 633.) Scottish Menziesia. Leaves 



scattered, linear, obtuse, toothed, crowded ; peduncles simple, terminal, 



aggregate ; flowers with a five-cleft limb, and ten stamens. 



English Botany, t. 2469.— English Flora, vol. ii. p, 222.— Hooker, 



