T4 FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 
sentative of the order Myricales, and its only genera are Myrica, the 
bayberry, sweet bay or sweet gale, and Comptonia, the sweet fern. 
Both are shrubs, the foliage delightfully aromatic, the leaves thick and 
coriaceous. The flowers are dioecious, without perianth, borne in 
aments, and are succeeded by small bony nut-like fruit, covered with a 
waxy resinous secretion. These berries, when gathered in quantity, 
furnish a most excellent wax, from which candles are occasionly manu- 
factured. The species are not numerous, but have a wide distribution, 
mostly in temperate regions. (See Fig. 61.) 
Fic. 60.—The Black Willow (Salix nigra) showing staminate and 
pistillate aments. Original. 
The tropical family Balanopsidaceae represents another mono- 
typic order and consists of the single genus Balanops. The plants are 
of little interest save to botanists. , 
Family Leitneriaceae. Leitneria Family. This family is re- 
stricted to a single rare tree of the southern United States, Zeitneria 
Floridana, so peculiar in structure that it is made the type of a 
distinct order, Leitneriales. It occurs, so far as known, only in 
Florida and Missouri, and is a small tree or shrub with gray bark, 
