AMENTIFER. 13) 
glandular disk at the base of the perianth. Female flowers 2 to 5 
together, rarely solitary, surrounded by a common bellshaped in- 
volucre, the outside of which is furnished with numerous linear 
bracts imbricated in many rows: perianth completely adherent to 
the ovary, and produced beyond it, the limb with 5 to 8 teeth: 
stamens rudimentary: ovary with 3 to 8 cells; ovules 2 in each cell; 
styles very short and thick; stigmas as many as the cells of the ovary, 
ascending. Nuts ovate-ovoid or subglobose, acuminated, usually 
compressed, 2, more rarely 3 or 5 enclosed in a common coriaceous 
bristly-spiny subglobular involucre, which opens by 4 valves; pericarp 
tough and leathery. Cotyledons filling the seed, folded, coherent, 
farinaceous. 
Trees with scaly buds and deciduous spinous-dentate leaves. 
Flowers monecious, appearing after the leaves, 
The name of this genus of plants is derived from Castina, a town in Thessaly, 
where it was abundant, or, as some authors say, from another town of that name in 
Pontus. 
SPECIES I—CASTANEA VULGARIS, Lam. 
Pirate MCCXC. 
Reich. Ic. Fl). Germ. et Helv. Vol. XII. Tab. DCXL. Fig. 1805. 
Billot, F\. Gall. et Germ. Exsicc. No. 2531. 
C. vesca, Giirtn. Reich. 1. e. p. 6. 
C. sativa, Mill. Crep, Man. FI. de Belg. ed. ii. p. 666. 
Fagus Castanea, Linn. Sm. Engl. Bot. ed. i. No. 886. 
Leaves elliptical or oblong-elliptical, acuminate, serrate with the 
serratures mucronate, glabrous above and below. 
In woods and copses, but having scarcely any claim to be considered 
native, unless possibly so in the south and west of England. In 
Scotland its fruit rarely ripens, even in the latitude of Edinburgh. 
[England, Scotland, Ireland.] Tree. Early Summer. 
A large tree with spreading branches, attaining a height of 50 feet or 
more, the old bark deeply cleft. Leaves on petioles rarely above an 
inch long; the lamina 5 to 9 inches, with numerous veins running 
straight from the midrib to the margins, and terminating in the bristly 
points of the serratures. Flowers produced on the shoots of the year; 
male catkins 4 to 8 inches long, ascending, with a stiff rachis, on 
which the glomerules are placed at short distances from each other: 
stamens long; anthers pale yellow. Lemale flowers shortly stalked 
or subsessile: involucre 4-partite. In fruit the involucre becomes 
enlarged, somewhat woody, thickly clothed on the outside with 
unequal bristly spines, and containing 2 or 3 smooth nuts attached by 
a large basal scar. Leaves bright green, shining above, paler beneath. 
