226 CORNACEjE 



hairs ; -flowers greenish-yellow j berries black ; endocarp lilac. — 

 Banks, woods, rocks, and old walls; general. — Fl. October, 

 November. Perennial. 



h£dera h£lix {Common Ivy). 



Ord. XXXVI. Cornace^e. — The Dogwood Family 



A small order, mostly shrubs or trees, inhabiting the temperate 

 regions of the Northern Hemisphere. They have mostly exsti- 

 pulate, opposite, simple leaves, small, polysymmetric flowers, which 

 are generally tetramerous, and i— 4-chambered berry-like fruit, 

 with stony endocarps ; sepals 4, superior, valvate ; petals 4 — 5, 

 epigynous ; stamens 4 — 5, epigynous ; style single, thread-like ; 

 stigma simple or lobed. The Order contains few plants of 

 interest. The evergreen known as the Spotted Laurel (Aucuba 

 japonica), now common in our gardens, is a member of the Order. 

 The spots are a disease which is only slightly transmitted by seed ; 

 but the plant, being dioecious, is largely multiplied by layers. 

 The staminate plant is now grown separately, or it can be grafted 

 on the pistillate shrub, so that the red berries are now commonly 

 produced. Benthdmia fragifera, a handsome shrub from the 



