ELiEAGNACEJE, 453 



A considerable genus, widely spread over the northeru hemisphere, with 

 a few species extending into the tropics. 



Leaves deciduous. Flowers purple, below the leaves 1. Mexereon D. 



Leaves evergreen. Flowers green, axillary 3. Spurge D. 



Several exotic species are cultivated for the beauty or the perfume of 

 their flowers, especially the Z>. odora, D. pontica, D. cneorum, etc. 



1. Mezereon Daphne. Daphne Mezereum, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 1381. Mezereon.) 



An erect, glabrous shrub, of 1 to 3 feet, with few, erect branches, each 

 terminated by a tuft or shoot of narrow-oblong or lanceolate, deciduous 

 leaves, about 2 or 3 inclies long. Before these leaves are fully out, the 

 flowers appear in clusters of 2 or 3 along the preceding year's shoot : they 

 are purple and sweet-scented. Perianth-tube 3 or 4 hues long, and shghtly 

 hairy, the lobes rather shorter. Berries red. 



In woods, chiefly in hilly districts, spread over nearly the whole of 

 Europe and Russian Asia to the Arctic regions. In Britain, however, be- 

 lieved to be truly wild only in some of the southern counties of England. 

 Fl. early spring. 



2. Spurge Daphne. Daphne Iiaureola, Linn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 119. Spurge Laurel.) 



An erect, glabrous shrub, of 2 to 4 feet, with few erect branches, and ever- 

 green, oblong or lanceolate leaves, crowded towards their summits. Flowers 

 in clusters or very short racemes of 3 to 5 in the axils of the leaves, rather 

 smaller than in the Mezereon D., green and scentless, and accompanied by 

 more conspicuous bracts. Berries bluish- black. 



In woods, in southern and western Europe, scarcely extending into Ger- 

 many. Not uncommon in England, doubtfully indigenous in southern 

 Scotland, and unknown in Ireland. Fl. spring. 



The large and important tropical family of the Laurels, remarkable 

 amongst Monochlamyds for the peculiar mode in which the anthers open 

 (hke those of the Barberry), is represented in our plantations by the Bay- 

 tree {Laurus nobilis), which is the true Laurel of the ancients and of poets. 



LXIV. THE ELiEAGNUS FAMILY. EL.^AGNACE^. 



Shrubs or trees, more or less covered witli minute, silvery 

 or brown, scurfy .scales, differing from the Daphne family in 

 the erect, not pendulous, ovule and seed. 



An Order of very few genera, dispersed over the northern hemisphere. 

 The principal one, Elceagnus, has not the clustered male flowers so peculiar 

 in our Hippophae. One or two of its species, from south-eastern Europe 

 and Asia, are not uncommon in our shrubberies. 



I. HIPPOPHAE. HIPPOPHAi:. 



A single species, distinguished as a genus by its dioecious flowers ; the males 



