EMPETBACE^. (CROWBEKEY FAMILY.) 393 



Styles 3, tUck, awl-ahaped, recurred, stigmatic down their whole length inside. 

 Pod globular, 3-homed, 3-celled, splitting into 3 at length 2-valved 2-seeaed 

 carpels. — Nearly glabrous, low and procumbent, perennial herbs, with matted 

 creeping rootstocks, and alternate, ovate or obovate, coarsely toothed leaves, 

 narrowed at the base into a petiole. Flowers each 1 - 3-bracted, the upper ones 

 Btaminate, a few fertile ones at the base, unpleasantly scented : sepals greenish : 

 filaments white (the size and thickness of the latter giving the name, from 

 wa)(is, thick, and Svhpa, used for stamen). 



1. P. procumbens, Michx. Stems (6'-9' long) bearing several ap- 

 proximate leaves at the summit on slender petioles, and a few many-flowered 

 spikes along the base ; the intervening portion naked, or with a few small scales. 

 — Woods ; mountains of Kentucky, W. Virginia, and southward. March, April. 



RiciNus COMMUNIS, the Castok-oil Plant, and B6xDS SBMPiiKViEEHB, 

 the Box, are cultivated representatives of this order. 



MJEECUKiiLis Annua, of Europe, has been found growing spontaneously 

 in Boston, and in Charleston, S. Carolina. 



Order 103. EMPETRACEjE. (Ckowberry Family.) 



Low shruVby evergreens, with the foliage, aspect, and compound pollen of 

 Heaths, and the drupaceous fruit of Arctostaphylos, but the stigmas, &c. of 

 Euphorbiaceae : — probably an apetalous and polygamous or dioecious de- 

 generate form of Ericaceae, — comprising three genera, two of which occur 

 within the limits of this work, and the third in Georgia, &c. 



1. lEMPETRUM, Tourn. Ckowberry. 



Flowers polygamous, scattered and solitary in the axils of the leaves (incon- 

 spicuous), scaly-bracted. Calyx of 3 spreading and somewhat petal-like sepals. 

 Stamens 3. Style very short: stigma 6-9-rayed. Fruit a, berry-like drupe, 

 with 6-9 seed-lilce nutlets ; each containing an erect anatropous seed. Embiyo 

 terete, in the axis of copious albumen, with a, slender inferior radicle and very 

 small cotyledons. (An ancient name, from iv, upon, and nerpos, a rock.) 



1. E. nigrum, L. (Black Croweeery.) Procumbent and trailing; 

 leaves lincar-oblong, scattered; fniit black. — Alpine summits of the moun- 

 tains of New England and N. New York ; L. Superior, and northward. (Eu.) 



2. COBEmA, Don. (Bkoom-Croweeeky.) 



Flowers dioecious or polygamous, collected in terminal heads, each in the axil 

 of a scaly bract, and with 5 or 6 thin and scaiious imbricated bractlets, but no 

 proper calyx. Stamens 3, rarely 4, with long filaments. Style slender, 3- (4 -5-) 

 cleft: stigmas naiTOW, often toothed. Drupe small, with 3 (rarely 4-5) nut- 

 lets. Seed, &c. as in the last. — Diffusely much-branched little shrubs, with 

 scattered or nearly whorled naiTOwly linear leaves. (Name Koprjfia, a broom, 

 from the bushy aspect.) 



