SANTALACER. 87 
Spurge Laurel. 
French, Daphné lauwréole. German, Wohlriechender Kellerhals. 
The Spurge Laurel possesses similar properties to the Mezereon, and may in many 
cases be substituted for it. Though not showy in its flowers, it is a valuable plant for 
shrubberies, from its being evergreen, and from its thick glossy leaves being disposed 
in tufts at the end of its branches, so as to give it a full bushy appearance. It thrives 
best in the shade, and will grow under the drip of trees, where few other plants would 
thrive. The berries are black when ripe, and are a favourite food of singing-birds, 
though poisonous to all other creatures. 
ORDER LXV.—SANTALACES. 
Annual or perennial herbs, or shrubs or trees, often subparasitical, 
with the leaves alternate (or sometimes the lower ones opposite), simple, 
entire, sometimes scalelike or absent. Stipules none. Flowers perfect 
or polygamo-diccious, small, in terminal racemes, spikes, or panicles, 
or solitary and axillary. Perianth single, coloured within; tube 
adhering to the ovary; limb regular, 4- or 5-cleft, the segments with 
valvate cstivativa. Petals absent. Stamens definite, usually of the 
same number as the lobes of the perianth and inserted in their base; 
anthers 2-celled (very rarely 4-celled), opening longitudinally. Ovary 
solitary, adhering to the tube of the perianth, 1-celled; ovules com- 
monly 3, but varying from 1 to 4, pendulous from the apex of the free 
central placenta, very rarely erect, anatropous; styles generally short ; 
stigma 2- or 3-lobed. Fruit a nut, or drupe often crowned by the per- 
sistent perianth. Seed solitary, with a membranaceous testa; albumen 
dense, fleshy ; embryo straight; cotyledons cylindrical ; radicle superior. 
GENUSI—THESIUM. Linn. 
Flowers perfect. Perianth persistent; tube herbaceous, adhering to 
the ovary; limb coloured within, funnelshaped, divided into 4 or 5 
seements, which are connivent and more or less rolled inwards in fruit. 
Disk none. Stamens 5; anthers 2-celled. Style filiform; stigma capitate. 
Fruit dry, indehiscent, enclosed and adhering to the herbaceous calyx 
tube, and crowned by the segments of the perianth. 
Subparasitical herbs or undershrubs with narrow alternate leaves, 
without stipules, and small flowers generally white on the inside of the 
limb. 
It is said that this genus of plants was named in honour of Theseus, the mythic 
Grecian hero. 
