388 THE DAPHNE FAMILY. : [ Daphne. 
1-celled, with a single pendulous ovule. Style exceedingly short, with a 
capitate stigma. Fruit a berry or drupe, the endocarp forming a slightly 
crustaceous, 1-seeded stone. 
A considerable genus, widely spread over the northern hemisphere, with 
a few species extending into the tropics. 
Leaves deciduous. Flowers purple, below the leaves . - « lL. D. Mezereum. 
Leaves evergreen. Flowers green, axillary . ° ° ° . 2 D. Laureola. 
Several exotic species are cultivated for the beauty or the perfume of 
their flowers, especially D. odora, D. pontica, D. Cneorum, ete. 
1, D. Mezereum, Linn. (fig. 878). Mezereon Daphne, Mezereon.— 
An erect, glabrous shrub, of 1 to 3 feet, with few, erect branches, each 
terminated by a 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 
Europe and Russian Asia to the Arctic regions. In Britain, however, 
believed to be truly wild only in some of the southern counties of 
England. £1. early spring. 
2, D. Laureola, Linn. (fig. 879). Spurge Daphne, Spurge Lavrel.— 
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 Europe, scarcely extending into 
Germany. Not uncommon in England, doubtfully indigenous in southern 
Scotland, and unknown in Ireland. FV. spring. ; 
The large and important tropical family of Zaurinee, remarkable 
amongst Monochlamyde for the peculiar mode in which the anthers open 
(like those of the Barberry), is represented in our plantations by the 
Bay-tree (Laurus nobilis), which is the true Laurel of the ancients and of 
poets. : 
LXV. ELHAGNACEA. THE ELAZAGNUS FAMILY. 
Shrubs or trees, more or less covered with minute, silvery 
or brown, scurfy scales, differmg from Thymeleaceew in the 
erect, not pendulous, ovule and seed. 
An Order of very few genera, dispersed over the northern hemisphere. 
The principal one, Ele@agnus, 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. 
