AMENTIFERZ. 181 
One day,’ quoth he, ‘I sate, as was my trade, 
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoar, 
Keeping my sheep among the cooly shade 
Of the green alders on the Mulla’s shore.’ ” 
Browne, another old English poet, alludes to the alder not injuring the grass that 
grows beneath it :— 
‘¢The alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth 
Each plant set neere to him, long flourisheth.” 
We have already said that the alder is found to attain the greatest perfection in 
damp moist lands, and no tree is so well adapted for upholding the banks of rivers, 
from the great multiplicity of its roots. It will not even live on a dry chalky soil. 
GENUS VII—BETULA. Tournef. 
Male flowers in cylindrical catkins with peltate catkin-scales, each 
eatkin-scale accompanied by 2 floral-scales, and covering 3 flowers: 
stamens 4, attached to the catkin-scale ; filaments very short, combined 
at the base; anthers 1-celled. Female catkins oblong-cylindrical, with 
the catkin-scales 3-lobed at the apex, and covering 3 flowers; floral- 
scales or perianth none: ovary sessile, 2-celled, with 1 ovule in each 
cell; styles 2, elongate-filiform, stigmatiferous throughout. Fruit 
catkins with rather small deciduous scarious catkin-scales, the 2 lateral 
lobes of each scale spreading. Fruit a minute nut, 2-celled and 2-seeded 
or 1-celled and 1-seeded by abortion of the middle cell, surrounded by 
broad membranous marginal wings. Cotyledons filling the cavity of 
the seed, flattish, oblong. : 
Trees or shrubs with roundish or rhomboidal or triangular serrate 
or lobed leaves. Male catkins generally in pairs, produced in autumn, 
and remaining naked during the winter; female catkins solitary, ap- 
pearing with or shortly after the leaves. 
According to Dr. Mayne, the origin of the name of this genus of plants is from 
batuo, I beat or strike; because of it were formed the fasces borne before the 
magistrates by the lictors of Rome. 
SPECIES I—-BETULA ALBA. Lim. 
Pratrrs MCCXCV. MCCXCVI. 
Leaves conspicuously stalked, deltoid- or rhomboidal-ovate, acute 
or acuminate, doubly serrated. Catkin-scales of the female catkin 
3-lobed, the sinus between the lobes extending less than half-way 
down. Fruit with a wing broader than the seed-bearing part, which 
is oval or oval-obovate. 
