26 ERICACEAE. Vaccinium. 



young. — Fl. Dan. t. 80. Oxi/coccus palustris, Pers. I.e. 0. vulgaris, Pursh, 1. 0. Schollera 

 Oxi/coccus, Roth. — Sphagnous swamps, around the subarctic zone, from Newfoundland 

 and Labrador south to mountains of Pennsylvania, to the Saskatchewan district, and to 

 Alaska. (Greenland to Japan.) 

 V. maorocarpon, Ait. (Large Amek. Cranberry.) Stems stouter, 1 to 4 feet long, 

 and with more ascending branches : leaves oblong or narrowly oval, obtuse, a third to half 

 inch long ; the margins less revolute ; veins evident : pedicels several and somewhat race- 

 mose, the firmer scaly bracts separating as the bud develops above into a proliferous leafy 

 shoot : filaments one third the length of the anthers : berry ovoid or oblong, half to three- 

 fourths inch long (variable in shape and size, much larger than in the preceding). — Ait. 

 Kew. ed. 1, ii. 13, t. 7 ; Bot. Mag. t. 2806 ; Emerson, Mass. Rep. ed. 2, t. 30. V. Oxi/coccus, 

 var. oUongifoUus, Jlichx. 1. c. Oxi/coccus macrocarpus, Pursh, 1. c. ; Bart. Fl. i. t 17. ^ Bogs, 

 &c., Newfoundland to N. Carolina, through Northern States and Canada to Saskatchewan. 

 Said by Hooker to abound at the mouth of Columbia River ? (Japan ?) 



3. CHIOGENES, Salisb. Creeping Snowberey. (From iitav, snow, 

 aud yivog, offspring, in allusion to the snow-white berries.) — Flowers very small 

 and inconspicuous, solitary in the axils of the small Thyme-like leaves, on short 

 nodding peduncles ; a pi^ir of large ovate persistent bractlets under the calyx. 

 Tube of the latter adnate to the lower half of the ovary, or rather more ; the 

 limb 4-parted. Corolla little exceeding the calyx, 4-cleft, greenish-white. Sta- 

 mens 8, included, inserted on an 8-toothed disk : filaments very short and broad : 

 cells of the anther ovate-oblong, separate, neither awned «n the back nor pro- 

 duced into tubes, but each minutely 2-pointed at the apex, and opening by a large 

 chink down to the middle or lower. Style columnar. Berry globular, crowned 

 by the 4 short calyx teeth, largely inferior, the calyx-tube being now almost 

 wholly adnate. Seeds rather numerous, obliquely obovate, with a close and firm 

 coriaceous minutely reticulated coat. — Genus naturally related rather to Gaultheria 

 and Pernettya than to Vaccinium, except in the adnation of the calyx. 



i=C. llispidula, Torr. & Gray. A slender trailing or creeping evergreen, with the habit 

 of Cranberry, the aroma and taste of Wintergreen or Sweet Birch : filiform branches 

 strigose-hispid : leaves ovate, with rounded or obtuse base and revolute margins, thick- 

 coriaceous, 2 to 4 lines long, short-petioled, glabrous, except tlie scattered rusty bristles of 

 the margins and lower surface: bractlets foliaeeous and almost equalling the flower: 

 white berry also minutely bristly, slight ly spicy but otherwise insipid, ripe late in summer. 

 —Torr. Fl. N. Y. i. 450, t. 68 ; Gray, Man. ed. 1, 202. C. serpi/tltfolia, Salisb. Trans. Ilort. 

 Soc. Lond. ii. 94. Vaccinium hispidiilum, L. (excl. syn.) ; Miehx. Fl. i. 228, t. 23. Arbutus 

 JUiformis, Lam. Diet. i. 228. A. thi/mifolia, Ait. Kew. ed. 1, ii. 72. Oxi/coccus hispidulus, Pers. ; 

 Nutt. Gen. i. 251. Gaultheria serpi/ll'ifolia, Pursli, Fl. i. 283, 1. 13 (bad). G. his/vduhi, Muhl. 

 Cat. ; Hook. Fl. ii. 36. Gli/ci/phi/lla his/iiduki, Raf. in Am. Month. Mag. 1819. Plialerocurpus 

 serpi/llifolius, G. Don, Syst. ill. 841 ; Dunal in DC. 1. c. 577 ; Klotzsch in Linn. xxiv. 67 (char, 

 bad). — Sphagnous swamps and damp woods, Newfoundland to the northern Rocky Jloun- 

 tains, and in the Atlantic States south to the cooler parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 

 thence along the AUeghanies to North Carolina. 



C. Japonica, a second species (C his/vdula, Miquel), the representative in Japan, has 

 obovate or oval leaves, all acute or tapering at base. 



4. Arbutus, Toum. (Classical Latin name.) — Low trees or shrubs (of 

 S. Europe and W. America from Oregon to Mexico) ; with evergreen and cori- 

 aceous alternate petiolate leaves, and white or flesh-colored small flowers in a 

 terminal cluster of racemes or panicles. Bracts and bractlets scaly. Calyx small, 

 5-parted. Corolla from globular to ovate. Ovary on a hypogynous disk : ovules 

 crowded on a fleshy placenta projecting from the inner angle of each cell. Style 

 rather long : stigma obtuse. Berry more or less eatable. 



