26 ERICACEAE. Vaccinium. 



young. — Fl. Dan. t. 80. Oxycoccus palustris, Pers. 1. c. 0. vulgaris, Pursh, 1. e. Schollera 

 Oxycoccus, Roth. — Sphagnous swamps, around the subarctic zone, from Newfoundland 

 and Labrador south to mountains of Pennsylvania, to the Saskatchewan district, and to 

 Alaska. (Greenland to Japan. ) 

 V. macrocarpon, Ait. (Large Amer. Cranberry.) Stems stouter, 1 to 4 feet long, 

 and with more ascending branches : leaves oblong or narrowly oval, obtuse, a third to half 

 inch long ; the margins less revolute ; veins, evident : pedicels several and somewhat race- 

 mose, the firmer scaly bracts separating as the bud develops above into a proliferous leafy 

 shoot : filaments one third the length of the anthers : berry ovoid or oblong, half to three- 



/ fourths inch long (variable in shape and size, much larger than in the preceding). — Ait. 

 Kew. ed. 1, ii. 13, t. 7 ; Bot. Mag. t. 2flflfi ; Emerson, Mass. Rep. ed. 2, t. 30. V. Oxycoccus, 

 var. oblong if olius, Michx. 1. c. Oxycoccus macrocarpus, Pursh,. 1. c. ; Bart. Fl. i. t. 17. — Bogs 

 &c, Newfoundland to N. Carolina, through Northern States and Canada to Saskatchewan. 

 Said by Hooker to abound at the mouth of Columbia River "> 



3. CHIOG-ENES, Salisb. Creeping Snowberrt. (From ^icor, snow, 

 and ys'vog, offspring, in allusion to the snow-white berries.) — Flowers very small 

 and inconspicuous, solitary in the axils of the small Thyme-like leaves, on short 

 nodding peduncles ; a pair of large ovate persistent bractlets under the calyx. 

 Tube of the latter adnate to the lower half of the ovary, or rather more ; the 

 limb 4-parted. Corolla little exceeding the calyx, 4-cleft, greenish-white. Sta- 

 mens 8, included, inserted on an 8-toothed disk : filaments very short and broad : 

 cells of the anther ovate-oblong, separate, neither awned on the back nor pro- 

 duced into tubes, but each minutely 2-pointed at the apex, and opening by a large 

 chink down to the middle or lower. Style columnar. Berry globular, crowned 

 by the 4 short calyx teeth, largely inferior, the calyx-tube being now almost 

 wholly adnate. Seeds rather numerous, obliquely obovate, with a close and firm 

 coriaceous minutely reticulated coat. — Genus naturally related rather to Gaultheria 

 and Pemettya than to Vaccinium, except in the adnation of the calyx. 



C. hispidula, Torr. & Gray. A slender trailing or creeping evergreen, with the habit 

 of Cranberry, the aroma and taste of Wintergreen or Sweet Birch: filiform branches 

 strigose-hispid : leaves ovate, with rounded or obtuse base and revolute margins, thick- 

 coriaceous, 2 to 4 lines long, short-petioled, glabrous, except the scattered rusty bristles of 

 the margins and lower surface: bractlets foliaceous and almost equalling the flower: 

 white berry also minutely bristly, slight ly spicy but otherwise insipid, ripe late in summer. 

 — Torr. Fl. N. Y. i. 450, t. 68 ; Gray, Man. ed. 1, 262. C. serpyllifolia, Salisb. Trans. Hort. 

 Soc. Lond. ii. '94. Vaccinium hispidulum, L. (excl. syn.); Michx. Fl. i. 228, t. 23. Arbutus 

 filiformis, Lam. Diet. i. 228. A. thymifolia, Ait. Kew. ed. 1, ii. 72. Oxycoccus hispidulus, Pers. ; 

 Nutt. Gen. i. 251. Gaultheria serpyllifolia, Pursh, Fl. i. 283, t. 13 (bad). G. hispidula, Mulil. 

 Cat. ; Hook. Fl. ii. 36. Glyci/phylla hispidula, Raf. in Am. Month. Mag. 1819. Phuterocurpus 

 serpyllifohus, G. Don, Syst. iii. 841 ; Dunal in DC. 1. e. 577 ; Klotzsch in Linn. xxiv. 67 (char, 

 bad). — Sphagnous swamps and damp woods, Newfoundland to the northern Rocky Moun- 

 tains, and in the Atlantic States south to the cooler parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 

 thence along the Alleghanies to North Carolina. 

 C. Japonica, a second species (C. hispidula, Miquel), the representative in Japan, has 



obovate or oval leaves, all acute or tapering at base. 



4. ARBUTUS, Tourn. (Classical Latin name.) — Low trees or shrubs (of 

 S. Europe and W. America from Oregon to Mexico) ; with evergreen and cori- 

 aceous alternate petiolate leaves, and white or flesh-colored small flowers in a 

 terminal cluster of racemes or panicles. Bracts and bractlets scaly. Calyx small, 

 o-parted. Corolla from globular to ovate. Ovary on a hypogynous disk: ovules 

 crowded on a fleshy placenta projecting from the inner angle of each cell. Style 

 rather long : stigma obtuse. Berry more or less eatable. 



