22 Hamamelis Virghiica. 



same hue and sienna-brown. A small blue lichen often invests even 

 the smallest twigs. Leaves large, smooth, broad-ovate, unevenly cor- 

 date at base, terminating in an obtuse point; irregularly and largely 

 toothed; the teeth sometimes acute, often obtuse. Costa prominent 

 beneath, sending off on either side, alternately at acute angles, five or 

 six nerves. Flowers situated on short foot-stalks in clusters along the 

 ends of the branches. Calices at first small, afterwards enlarging with 

 the approach of the fruit to maturity, consisting of thick scales, ex- 

 ternally pubescent. Stamens generally four, shorter than the cali- 

 cine segments. Petals gamboge-yellow, linear, obtuse, from half to 

 three-quarters of an inch long, involuted at their ends. The germ en- 

 larges slowly, requiring a whole year to bring it to maturity, at the ex- 

 piration of this time it becomes a hard, ovate nut of an ochre-yellow 

 colour, and invested externally with a dense, short pubescence, notch- 

 ed at the apex in the line of a subsequent fissure dividing the nut into 

 two halves, on the occurrence of which the seeds, four in number, are 

 thrown out. This opened nut remains for the most part on the 

 branches long after the succeeding period of florescence, becoming 

 after the seeds arc dropped of a bistre-brown colour. Hence the 

 flowers and fruit are found on the shrub at the same time, which has 

 given origin to the generic appellation Hamamelis— i^x,*, being an 

 ancient Greek name from &**, accompanying, and *,a,«, or *«;u«, an ap- 

 ple-tree, because the plant which bore it blossomed at the same time. 

 This is supposed by modern Botanists to have been the Mespilus 

 Amclanchier or something near it. Linnaeus finding the name unoc- 



