^^^ santalacejE. [Thesium. 



nut or kernel is as acrimonious as any part of the plant, a fact which applies 

 equally to Ihe"^ berries of our other British Daphne, the well-known and fragrant 

 Mezereon of the gardens, which are swallowed with impunity by birds, since the 

 kernel is passed by them unbroken. 



I once found a flower of the Spurge Laurel with 6 divisions, including within 

 a single perianth a double set of stamens and two ovaries, perfectly distinct, yet 

 without any appearance as if two of the blossoms had cohered and grown 

 together. 



Order LXVI. SANTALACE.^, R. Br. 



" Perianth adnate with the ovary ; its limb 3 — 5 cleft, with val- 

 vate aestivation. Stamens 3 — 5, opposite to the segments of the 

 perianth, epigynous. Ovary 1 -celled, with 1—4 ovules, pendu- 

 lous from near the summit of a free centrsl placenta. Style 1. 

 Stigma often lobed. Fruit hard, dry, and somewhat drupaceous, 

 1-seeded. Albumen fleshy, with the embryo in its axis. — Trees, 

 shrubs, or herbaceous plants. Leaves alternate or nearly so, with- 

 out stipules. Flowers small." — Br. Fl. 



I. Thesium, Linn. Toadflax. 



" Perianth 4 — 5 cleft, persistent. Stamens with a small fascicle 

 of hairs at their base. Stigma simple. Drupe crowned with the 

 persistent perianth." — Br. Fl. 



1. T. linophyllum, L. Lint-leaved Bastard Toadflax. " Stems 

 procumbent or ascending, leaves hnear - lanceolate 1 - nerved, 

 racemes simple or panicled leafy, peduncles and pedicels with 

 three bracteas, pedicels usually as long as the flower in fruit 

 spreading their angles and the edges of the bracteas and upper 

 leaves denticulato-scabrous, fruit oval-oblong." — Br. Fl. p. 862. 

 Sm. E. Fl. i. p. 338. Litid. Syn. p. 208. E. B. iv. t. 247. T. 

 humifusum, D.G. 



On dry, open, mostly hilly and chalky pastures and banks ; ftequent. Fl. June 

 — August. 11. 



E. Med. — On Ashey down. On chalky banks facing the sea at Ventnor, Miss 



Daphne Mezereum. — In the manner described above solitary specimens of the 

 Mezereon are occasionally found disseminated in woods and thickets of this island. 

 A single small plant was found in a moist brambly thicket about a quarter of 

 a mile W. of Wacklands, by Mr. Thatcher, 1845 !!1 A specimen had been found 

 some years previously at Apse castle by Mrs. Cheverton, of Apse farm, and by 

 her transplanted into the garden there, where I saw it growing. Such an occur- 

 rence however is so rare as to preclude all idea of its being a native here, although 

 apparently truly indigenous to the woods of the interior of Hants, Dorset and 

 Sussex, where however it is seldom allowed to remain undisturbed, from being 

 dug up by the cottagers for sale or to plant in their gardens. Though quite a 

 northern species, ranging even to Lapland, the Mezereon is a shrub rather of 

 eastern and continental than of western Europe, avoiding a maritime coast cli- 

 mate ; hence it is absent from Scotland and the western half of England, nor 

 does Ireland produce either of our British Daphnes. 



