CASTANEA 



Castanea, Adanson, Fam. PL ii. 375 (1763); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. PI. iii. 409 (1880); Dode, 



Bull. Soc. Dendr. France, 1908, p. 140. 

 Fagus, Linnaeus, Gen. PI. 292 (in part) (1737). 

 Casanophorum, Necker, Elem. Bot. iii. 257 (1790). 



Trees or shrubs, belonging to the order Fagace^. Bark furrowed. Buds all axillary, 

 no true terminal bud being formed, as the tip of the branchlet falls off in early summer, 

 leaving a small circular scar close to the uppermost axillary bud, which prolongs the 

 branchlet in the following year. Buds alternate, arranged on the long shoots in 

 two ranks ; scales numerous, two or three of which are visible externally, lowest 

 pair lateral and each composed of two connate stipules, next pair each corre- 

 sponding to a stipule and with or without a leaf-rudiment, following pairs of single 

 stipules each covering a young leaf ; all the single stipules accrescent and marking in 

 their fall the base of the shoot with ring-like scars. 



Leaves deciduous, alternate, simple, stalked, dentate with slender glandular teeth, 

 penninerved, each lateral nerve ending in a tooth. Stipules ovate or lanceolate, 

 scarious, deciduous, their scars visible in winter on each side of the leaf-scars, which 

 show three groups of bundle-dots, and are placed on prominent pulvini, from which 

 decurrent lines descend along the branchlet. 



Flowers monoecious, strong-smelling,^ fertilised by the wind, unisexual, in slender 

 elongated erect catkins, of which those arising in the axils of the lower leaves of the 

 branchlet open early and are entirely composed of male flowers, while the catkins 

 arising in the axils of the upper leaves are shorter and bear female flowers at their 

 base and male flowers on their upper part, the latter not opening until after the 

 female flowers have been fertilised. Staminate flowers three to seven, in a cyme in 

 the axil of a bract, and surrounded by minute bracteoles ; calyx campanulate, deeply 

 divided into usually six segments, stamens twice or thrice as many as the calyx 

 lobes ; filaments filiform ; anthers two-celled, dehiscing longitudinally ; ovary aborted. 

 Pistillate flowers, sessile, solitary or two to three together, placed within an involucre 

 of closely imbricated scales, subtended by a bract and two bracteoles ; calyx-tube 

 urn-shaped, divided above into six short lobes ; ovary adnate to the calyx tube, 

 six-celled, each cell containing two ovules, surmounted by six simple styles, which 

 are exserted out of the involucre. 



' Cf. Kerner, Nat. Hist. Plants, Eng. trans, ii. 200 (1898), concerning the nature of the odour of the flowers 



