Alnus.] ame\tace;e. 4C5 



none,* unless we consider as such three vaulted, nearly orbicular, membranous 

 bracts beneath the larger peltate scale, the middle one uppermost projectina; hori- 

 zontally forwards beneath the scale and mostly somewhat pointed, each of them 

 subtending and partially enfolding (4 ?) stamens, in which case each of the scales 

 represents a flower, and the bracts, from analogy with those of the pistillate cat- 

 kins, must he considered as S-flowered. Stamens 10—12, in 3 indistinct sets at 

 the base of each bract ; filaments short ; anthers large, yellow or purplish. Pistil- 

 late catkins solitary from the bosom of the leaf buds aud between a pair of leaves, 

 stalked, nodding or inclining, from about ^ to f ths of an inch in length and about 

 a line in breadth, cylindrical, blunt, slightly curved, their peduncles about ^ an 

 inch long, with 3 oblong or lanceolate, unilateral, pale bracts towards the middle, 

 the central and innermost one floriferous in the axil. Floral bracts (scales) 

 erecto- patent, 3-flowered, pale green, glabrous, 3-lobed, the middle lobe very 

 broadly ovate or elliptic, very obtuse and rounded, somewhat recurved at the tip, 

 which is entire or prolonged into a fleshy mucro, the lateral lobes minute, round- 

 ish. Styles simple, bright purple, fleshy, glabrous, as long as the bracts. 



The twiggy branches are much in demand for making brooms, and, as Sir W. 

 Hooker observes, " well-known instruments of castigation," now, happily for the 

 credit of the age in which we live, seldom resorted to, except in those monkish 

 seminaries of sound learning, rightly so called {vox et prseterea nihil), our great 

 public schools. 



IV. Alnus, Town. Alder. 



" Barren flowers : — Scale of the catkin 3-lobed, with ^flowers. 

 Perianth 4-partite. Stamens 4. — Fertile flowers : — Scale of the 

 catkin subtrifid, with 2 flowers. Perianth 0. Ovary with 4 

 minute scales at its base. Fruit without a membranaceous mar- 

 gin, compressed." — Br. Fl. 



1. A. ^lutinosa, Gsertn. Common Alder. " Leaves roundish- 

 cuneiform obtuse lobed at the margin and serrated somewhat glu- 

 tinous downy in the axils of the nerves beneath." — Br. Fl. p. 380. 

 Betula Ahaus, L. : E. B. t. 1508. 



In marshy and boggy ground, wet meadows, and on the banks of rivers and 

 streams, i^/. March. Tj. 



Plentiful about Alverstone mill. Alder Carrs, near Ninham farm, &c. 



A tree, usually of small or medium ,iize, at other times 60 or 80 feet in height, 

 with widely spreading horizontal branches, and reddish or grayish bark rough on 

 the trunk, that of the branches smooth, and of the smaller ones rusty brown, with 

 a partially glaucous cuticle. Leaves from purplish blue and glaucous buds, bright 

 green, somewhat glutinous and shining, 2 — 4 inches long, obovato-rotundate, 

 somewhat cuneate at the base, irregularly erenato-serrate, slightly lobed and 



* The three lower scales (situated beneath the larger peltate bract and its two 

 subsidiary ones, lying immediately under it in the same plane) may fairly be con- 

 sidered, with Wahlenberg and others, as each analogous to or in the place of a 

 perianth, since these three inferior scales are nearly perpendicular to the true 

 bracts, and unilateral on the short stalk that carries the latter, are concave and 

 partly embrace the stamens, a third part of which (or about 4), is subtended by 

 each scale, so that by analogy with the fertile catkins the uppermost or real bracts 

 are each 3-flowered, with this difference only, that in the bracts of the pistillate 

 catkins the middle and side lobes are united into one piece, whilst in the stami- 

 nate catkins the three lobes are separate and distinct, in both kinds covering a 

 ternary group of flowers, which in the pistillate catkins are naked, in the stami- 

 nate furnished with a rudimentary floral envelope to each in the shape of a hol- 

 low scale. 



y 



