388 THE DAPHNE FAMILY. 
tuft or shoot of narrow-oblong or lanceolate, deciduous leaves, about — 
2 or 3 inches long. Before these leaves are fully out, the flowers 
appear in clusters of 2 or 3 along the preceding year’s shoot; they are 
purple and sweet-scented. Perianth-tube 3 or 4 lines long, and slightly 
hairy, the lobes rather shorter. Berries red. 
In woods, chiefly in hilly districts, spread over nearly the whole of 
HKurope and Russian Asia to the Arctic regions. In Britain, however, 
believed to be truly wild only in some of the southern counties of 
England. Fl. early spring. | 
2. D. Laureola, Linn. (fig. 881). Spurge Laurel.—An erect, glabrous 
shrub, of 2 to 4 feet, with few erect branches, and evergreen, oblong or 
lanceolate leaves, crowded towards their summits. Flowers in clusters 
or very short racemes of 3 to 5 in the axils of the leaves, rather smaller _ 
than in D. Mezereum, green and scentless, and accompanied by more 
conspicuous bracts. Berries bluish-black. 
In woods, in southern and western Hurope, scarcely extending into 
Germany. Not uncommon in England, doubtfully indigenous in southern 
Scotland, and unknown in Ireland. Fl. spring. 
The large and important tropical family of Zaurinew, remarkable. 
amonest Monochlamyde for the peculiar mode in which the anthers open 
(like those of the Barberry), is represented in our gardens by the Bay- 
Sweet (Laurus nobilis), which is the Laurel of the ancients and of poets. 
LXV. ELEZAGNACEA. THE ELZAGNUS FAMILY. 
Shrubs or trees, more or less covered with minute, silvery or 
brown, scurfy scales, differing from Thymeleacew in the erect, 
not pendulous, ovule and seed. 
An Order of very few genera, dispersed over the northern hemisphere. 
The principal one, Elicagnus, has not the clustered male flowers so 
peculiar in our Hippophae. One or two of its species, from south-eastern 
Europe and Asia, are not uncommon in our shrubberies. 
I. HIPPOPHAE. HIPPOPHAE. 
Shrubs or small trees, distinguished as a genus by their dicecious 
flowers ; the males in axillary clusters, with a perianth of 2 small seg- 
ments and 4 stamens; the females solitary, with a tubular perianth, 
minutely 2-lobed, which becomes succulent, forming a berry round the 
true.fruit. The reduced perianth and clustered flowers show consider- 
able affinity with Myrica. 
1. H. rhamnoides, Linn. (fig. 882). Sallow-Thorn, Sea Buckthorn. 
—A willow-like shrub, covered with a scaly scurf, very close and silvery 
on the under side of the leaves, thin or none on the upper side, dense 
and more or less rusty on the young shoots and flowers; the axillary 
shoots often ending in a stout prickle. Leaves alternate, linear, and 
entire. Male flowers very small, in little clusters resembling catkins. 
Females crowded, although solitary in each axil; the perianth about 2 
lines long, contracted at the top, with the style shortly protruding, form- | 
ing when in fruit a small yellowish or brown berry. 
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