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402 - THE ELM FAMILY. | [Ulmus. © 
feet ; the young branches are more slender, and the leaves usually smaller 
and less coarse; but all these characters are very variable. 
Widely spread over central, southern, and eastern Europe, and western 
Asia, and the most generally planted species. In Britain, it is the most 
frequent one in fields and hedge-rows. It is nowhere indigenous in Britain, 
where it rarely ripens seed, but increases rapidly by root suckers. FU. early 
spring, before the leaves. It varies with the leaves nearly smooth and 
glabrous, and the bark becomes corky (U. suberosa, Ehrh.), even on the 
young branches, more frequently than in U. montana; but the supposed 
species established on these characters do not come true from seed. 
LXXITI. AMENTACER. THE CATKIN FAMILY. 
Trees or shrubs, with alternate flat leaves, usually with sti- 
pules, and small, unisexual flowers, in cylindrical, oblong, or 
globular spikes, called catkins, which are usually dense with 
closely packed, scale-like bracts, rarely loose, or with minute 
deciduous scales. Stamens in the male catkins 2 or more 
(rarely united into 1) within each scale, usually accompanied 
by 2 or more smaller scales, either distinct or forming in a 
few cases an irregular or oblique perianth, or rarely entirely 
deficient. Female catkins either like the males, with 1, 2, or 
3 flowers within each scale, or reduced to a sessile bud, with 2 
or 3 flowers in the centre, surrounded by the lower empty 
scales of the catkin ; within each scale are also usually 2 or 3 
inner scales. Perianth none, or closely combined with the 
ovary, with a minute, free, or entire toothed border. Ovary 
1-celled or several-celled, with 2 or more styles, always result- 
ing in a l-celled fruit, which is either a l-seeded nut, or a 
several-seeded capsule opening in 2 valves. The catkin-scales, 
or the inner scales, or both, usually persist, and are sometimes 
enlarged into an involucre, either around or under the fruit. 
Seeds without albumen, at least in the British genera. 
An extensive family, widely distributed over the globe, but chiefly in the 
temperate regions of both hemispheres, where it often constitutes a large 
proportion of the forest-trees. Minor differences, chiefly in the female 
flowers, have required its division into several independent families, but for 
the purposes of this work it forms a natural as well as a distinct group. 
Among the few British plants that have their inflorescence at all resembling 
catkins, Hippophae is readily distinguished by the berry-like fruits and 
scurfy foliage, Ulmus by its hermaphrodite flowers, Humulus by its oppo- 
site leaves, and Conifere by their peculiar foliage, independently of the 
important character of the naked seeds. 
Tree or shrub, in flower. 
Scales of the male catkins broad, imbricated. Anthers longer than 
their filaments. 
Male and female catkins short, sessile, and erect . . . - J, Myrtca, 
