186 THE HOSE FAMILY. 



are generally adopted ; but none of the characters given appear to be con- 

 stant in a wild state. 



3. Birdcherry Prunus. Prunus Padus, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 1383.) 



A shrub of 6 or 8 feet, or sometimes a smaU tree, always glabrous. 

 Leaves oval or ovate-lanceolate, finely toothed, and shghtly cordate at the 

 base. Flowers white, rather small, in loose, often drooping racemes of 2 

 or 3 to near 6 inches, on short, leafy, or rarely leafless branches, on the last 

 year's wood. Fruit small, nearly globular, black and bitter, with a rugged 

 stone. 



In woods, thickets, and hedges, in northern and central Europe and Asia, 

 from the Arctic regions to the Caucasus and Himalaya, but disappearing m 

 south-western Europe. Scattered over various parts of Britain, but absent 

 or rare in southern England, and a great part of Ireland. Fl. spring. 



II. SPIR.a:A. SPIK^A. 



Herbs, with pinnate leaves, or, in exotic species, shrubs, showing much 

 diversity in fohage. Flowers usually small and numerous, in elegant ter- 

 minal cymes or panicles. Calyx free, 5-lobed. Petals 5. Stamens nume- 

 rous. Carpels 3 or more, usually 5, quite free from the calyx, forming as 

 many dry capsules, opening, when ripe, along the inner edge, and containing 

 2 or more seeds. 



A considerable genus, spread over the northern hemisphere both in the 

 new and the old world, but scarcely penetrating into the tropics. It is easily 

 recognized by its dehiscent, capsular carpels, and among British Rosacece, 

 by the numerous small flowers. 



leaves with few large segments, white underneath 1. Meadow S. 



Leaves with numerous small segments, deeply toothed 2. Common S. 



Several North American and Asiatic shrubby species of Spircea are cul- 

 tivated in our shrubberies and flower-gardens, and among them the Willow S. 

 (S. salicifoliaj Eng. Bot. t. 1468), with simple oblong or lanceolate leaves, 

 and small crowded panicles of pink flowers, has been admitted into our 

 Floras as occmTing in several parts of northern England and southern 

 Scotland, but apparently only where it had been planted. It is a native of 

 eastern Europe and Russian Asia. 



1. MeadoTv Spireea. Spireea XTImaria, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 960. Meadow-sweet.) 

 Stock perennial, with erect, rather stout, annual stems, 2 or 3 feet high, 

 usually glabrous and reddish. Leaves large, pinnate, with 5 to 9 ovate or 

 broadly lanceolate segments often 2 or 3 inches long, irregularly toothed, 

 green above, soft and whitish miderneath, the terminal one deeply divided 

 into three ; besides which are several smaller segments along the common 

 stalk. Stipules broad and toothed. Flowers small, of a yellowish white, 

 sweet-scented, and very numerous, in compound corymbose cymes at the 

 summit of the stems. Capsules 5 to about 8, very small, and more or less 

 spirally twisted. 



