AND GENERA OF PLANTS. 259 



biaristate, with the awns reflected. Ovarium globose, the base surrounded 

 by a thick circular nectary. Style short, stigma obtuse. Drupe even, 

 globular, dry, with a very thick, hard and even, spherical nut, by abortion 

 one-seeded. A shrub of California, with alternate, entire leaves, tomentose 

 beneath. Flowers on terminal racemes, red. Drupes smooth, and sphe- 

 rical. (The name derived from ^v?.ov, wood, and xoxxos, a berry; the berry 

 or drupe being of a woody hardness.) 



Xylococcus bicolor. 



Hab. Monterey, Upper California. A fine shrub three or four feet high, with a smooth brown 

 bark. Leaves nearly the form and size of those oi Rhododendron punctatum, about two inches long 

 and about three quarters of an inch wide, elliptic, acute, entire, above green and shining, beneath 

 whitely tomentose, young branches pubescent. Racemes erect; pedicels and bractes, as well as 

 the calyx, villous; bractes short. Corolla large, red, internally smooth. Anthers short, the awns 

 about the same length. Drupes spherical, about the size of a grain of black pepper, yellowish, 

 smooth, and shining, with a thin coating of dry insipid pulp, wholly juiceless; the nut spherical 

 and even, without striation, occupying nearly the whole front, the shell exceedingly thick and 

 hard, with a vestige of five cells, all obliterated but one, and that containing a single, oblong, 

 compressed seed. Distinguished from Jirctostaphylos, by the flower and habit, no less than the 

 fruit: the filaments of the stamina are also proportionably longer, not suddenly dilated at base, 

 but gradually subulate and pilose throughout. 



Order. VAOCINIE^. (Decand.) 



DECAMERIUM. (Vaccinium, species Linn, and Willd.) 



Calyx adnate to the ovary, the border five-toothed. Corolla subcampanulate, 



five-toothed, stamina ten, included; anthers without dorsal awns, bifid at the 



apex, with oblique pores; the filaments dilated at base, nearly as long as the 



anthers. Style scarcely exserted, the stigma capitate-annular. Drupe globose, 



invested by the calyx, partly ten-celled with ten pyrense, or only one-celled ; 



nuts angular, one-seeded, about ten. Seed subelliptic, punctate. North 



American shrubs, with alternate, entire, oblong, or obovate leaves, flowers in 



lateral, leafy elongated bracteolate racemes, white, more or less tinged with red, 



arising from independent buds. Leaves and bractes sprinkled with resinous 



atoms. The fruit black or glaucous, subacid, and rather agreeable; but often 

 viii. — 3 Q 



