HAMAMELACE^. (wiTCH-HAZEL FAMILY.) 147 



May - July. — A tall shrub, with recurved branches : often cultivated. Leaves 

 tasting like cucumbers. 



P. ooeonAbitis, L., the common Mock Oeanob or Syeinga of the gai'- 

 dens, has cream-colored, odorous flowers in full clusters. 



Order 51. HAMAMSLAGE!.;!:. (Witch-Hazel Family.) 



Shrubs or trees, with alternate simple leaves and deciduous stiptdes ; flowers 

 in heads or spikes, often polygamous or monmcious; the calyx cohering with 

 the base of the ovary ; which consists of 2 pistUs united belovi, and forms a 

 2-beaked 2-celled woody pod opening at the summit, with a single bony seed 

 in each cell, or several, only one or two of them ripening. — Petals inserted 

 on the calyx, narrow, valvate or involute in the bud, or often none at all. 

 Stamens twice as many as the petals, and half of them sterile and changed 

 into scales, or numerous. Seeds anatropous. Embryo large and straight, 

 in sparing albumen : cotyledons broad and flat. — We have a single repre- 

 sentative of the 3 tribes, two of them apetalous. 



Synopsis. 



Tkibe I. 'RA.'B/LAH/l'ElA^JEm Flowers with a mauifest calyx and coiolla, and a single 



OTule suspended from the aununit of each cell. 

 1 HAMAMELIS. Petals 4, strap-shaped. Stamens and scales each 4, short. 



Tamx n. FOTHKRCtHjI^E:.^. Flowers with a manifest calyx and no corolla. Fruit 

 and seed as in Tribe I. 

 2. FOTHERQILLA. Stejnens about 24, long : filaments thickened upwards. Flowers spiked. 



Tribe III. BAIJSAIUIFIJTJ.^. Flowers naked, with barely rudiments of a calyx, and 

 no corolla, crowded in catkin-like heads. Ovules several or many in each cell. 

 8. LIQUIDAMBAR. Monoecious or polygamous. Stamens very numerous. Pods consoli- 

 dated by their bases in a dense head. 



1. HAMAMELIS, L. Wiicii-Hazel. 



Flowers in little axillary clusters or heads, usually surrounded by a scale-like 

 3-leaved involucre. Calyx 4-parted, and with 2 or 3 bractlets at its base. Pet- 

 als 4, strap-shaped, long and narrow, spirally involute in the bud. Stamens 8, 

 very short ; the 4 alternate with the petals anther-bearing, the others imperfect 

 and scale-hke. Styles 2, short. Pod opening loculicidally from the top ; the 

 outer coat separating from the inner, which encloses the single large and bony 

 seed in each cell, but soon bursts elastically into two pieces. — Tail shrubs, with 

 straight-veined leaves, and yellow, perfect or polygamous flowers. (Prom ajia, 

 like to and lirfKis, an apple-tree ; a name anciently applied to the Medlar, or 

 some other ti-ee resembling the Apple, which the Witcb-Hazol does not.) 



j_ jj, Virsinica, L. Leaves obovate or oval, wavy-toothed, somewhat 

 downy when young. — Damp woods: blossoming, late in autumn, when the 

 leaves are falling, and matming its seeds the next summer. 



