608 SMiLACE^. [Busdus. 



introduced there by accident. A few plants on the shore West of the houses at 

 Eyde, Wm. Wilson Saunders, Esq. 



W.Med. — Norton spit, Mr. W. £>. Snooke ; but sparingly!!! Freshwater, 

 Pulteney, Bot. Guide. 



Herb quite smooth. Root long, white, running deeply down in the loose sand 

 or shingle. Stems several, 1—2 feet high,* usually erect, green, striated, bluntly 

 angular, muob branched, the branches allernale, slender and upright, with an 

 acute, brownish and ribbed stipule at the origin of each ramification. Leaves 

 in small bundles of about 5 to 12, erect, setaceous, fleshy and pointed, weak and 

 flexible, with a small foliaceous stipule at the base of each fascicle (sometimes 

 accompanied by 2 minute interior ones, Sm.) Flowers drooping, yellowish green 

 with a tinge of reddish brown, not ^ an inch long, in pairs from the opposite sides 

 of the secondary branches at their junction with the main ones, and are therefore 

 not truly axillary. Pedicels spreading, curved downwards, with an annular joint 

 in the middle, from thence thickened upsvards into the perianth, of which it looks 

 like a production, the leafy appendage at the base of the branches serving as a 

 common bractea to both flower-sialks. Perianth bell-shaped, .somewhat contracted 

 about the middle, its segments oblong-obtuse, a little spreading or reflexed at the 

 tips. Stamens inserted at the base of each segment, short, connivent from the 

 bending of (be filaments at an acute angle in their upper half, their lower being 

 adnale with the perianth ; anthers large, 2-celled, somewhat awned, bursting on 

 their inner surface; pollen orange-coloured. Germen somewhat turbinate, seated 

 on a nectariferous base. " Style 3-sided, almost as long as the perianth, with 3 

 long recurved stigmas," (M. et K.): these organs in my specimens were mani- 

 festly imperfect, the style being obsolete, and the stigma reduced to three scarcely 

 visible points. 



The scaly shoots afford under cultivation a well-known delicacy of our tables. 



II. Eusous, Linn. Butcher's-broom. 



" Dioecious. Perianth spreading, of 6 sepals. Filaments com- 

 bined in a tube. — Barren flowers : — Anthers 3 — 6, reniform, 

 placed on the summit of the stamen-tube. — Fertile flmvers : — An- 

 thers 0. Style 1, surroimded by the tube of the sterile stamens. 

 Stigma capitate. Ovary 3-celled ; ovules 2 collateral in each cell. 

 Berry usually 1-seeded." — Br. Fl. 



Rigid, suffruticose, evergreen plants, with compressed shoots or branchlets 

 (phyllodia) in place of true leaves, which they much resemble, bearing flowers on 

 their upper or under side or along their margin. The few species known are 

 found in Europe, North Africa or Western Asia ; none in America. 



1. E. aculeatus, L. Common Butcher' s-h'oom. Knee Holm or 

 Knee Holly. Shepherd's Myrtle. Stems erect branched very 

 rigid, phyllodia elliptical- ovate mucronate aculeate with pungent 

 acerose points floriferous on their upper side towards the base, 

 flowers subsolitary bracteate subtended by a minute winged deci- 

 duous spine, berry globose. Sm. E. Fl. iv. 285. Br. Fl. p. 434. 

 Bab. Man. 802. E. B. viii. t. 560. 



* The authors of the ' Deutschland's Flora' found a wild specimen of A. offi 

 cinulis on the sea-coast, 12 or 14 feet high and 1^ inch in diameter. They fur- 

 ther remark that the German .species is (partially) dioecious and polygamous 

 (diclinisch — polygamisch). In the few specimens I have examined here the style 

 appears imperfectly developed, nor have I ever seen berries produced with us in 

 the wild state. 



