CLASS X. ORDER 1.) ARBUTDS. 693 



1. A. urie'do, Linn. (Fig. (572.) Slrawherry-lree. Trunk erect; 

 leaves obovale, or oblong lanceolate, serrated, coriaceous, smooth; 

 panicles terminal ; petlicles smooth ; berries granulated. 



English Botany, t. 2877. — English Flora, vol. ii. p. 252. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 193. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 174. 



A bushy evergreen tree, with an erect trunk of great beauty, the hark 

 of the trunk and branches of a dark reddish brown, the hardened 

 cuticle scaling off in thin flakes, that of the young shoots reddish. 

 Leaves numerous, scattered, persistent, obovate, or oblong lanceolate, 

 quite smooth, of a leathery texture, a dark shining green above, pale 

 beneath, with a stout raid-rib and numerous branched netted veins, 

 the margin finely, somewhat irregularly and obtusely serrated, the 

 footstalk short, channeled, the young leaves and sometimes the tender 

 shoots scattered over with glandular hairs. Inflorescence a terminal 

 panicle, branched, drooping, of numerous flowers, each on a smooth 

 pedicle^ from the axis of an ovate awl-shaped bractea. Calyx cleft 

 into five obtuse pieces, very finely ciliated on the margin. Corolla of 

 one piece, globose or ovate, contracted at the mouth with a reflexed 

 liynb, of five obtuse segments, a pinkish green, more or less semi- 

 transparent. Stamens with awl-shaped filaments, about half as long 

 as the corolla, hairy in the lower part, anthers yellow, of two cells, 

 opening at the apex with rather large pores, and surmounted with 

 short slender axons. Style tapering, about as long as the corolla. 

 Stigmas small, obtuse. Berry large, of a fine scarlet colour, the size 

 of a cherry, thickly covered over with granular points, quite hard 

 giving it the a^jpearance of a strawberry, yellow internally, with five 

 cells, each cell containing four or five small hard angular seeds. 



Habitat. — About the Lakes of Killarney, Mucruss, and at Glen- 

 garifl", near Bantry, and about most of the Mountain Lakes in the 

 barony of Beer. — Mr. J. Drummond. 



Tree ; flowering in October, the fruit ripe the following winter. 



The Strawberry-tree is an highly ornamental evergreen of great 

 beauty, not so much from the appearance of the flowers as the leaves, 

 and the large gay looking berries which adorn it for so great a part of 

 the year. It is a large bushy tree, sometimes forming a trunk of con- 

 siderable magnitude. Mr. Mackay states that he measured one on 

 Rough Island, Killarney, nine feet and a half in girth. The wood is 

 hard and prettily veined, rendering it of considerable value to turners, 

 cabinet-makers, &c. The fruit, though it perfects its seeds with us, is 

 far from being pleasant in flavour, and is of no other use than as food 

 for birds, especially blackbirds and thrushes, which resort to these 

 trees in considerable numbers ; but in Italy, and especially in the moi'e 

 Southern parts of Europe, the berries become perfectly ripe, and are by 

 no means so ungrateful as with us, though not even there a favourite 

 fruit. They are, nevertheless, applied to many useful purposes besides 

 that oi a dessert ; they are preserved with sugar, or pickled with salt 



