ELJEAGNACE^. 



723 



2. Spurge Daphne. Daphne Lanreola, Linn. (Fig. 873.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 119. Spurge Laurel.) 



An erect, glabrous shrub, of 2 to 4 

 feet, with few erect branches, and ever- 

 green, oblong or lanceolate leaves, 

 crowded towards their summits. Mowers 

 in clusters or very short racemes of 3 to 

 5 in the axils of the leaves, rather smaller 

 than in the Mezereon D., green and 

 scentless and accompanied by more con- 

 spicuous bracts. Berries bluish-back. 



In woods, in southern and western 

 Europe, scarcely extending into Ger- 

 many. Not uncommon in England, 

 doubtfully indigenous in southern Scot- 

 land, and unknown in Ireland. Fl. 

 spring. 



Fig. 873. 



The large and important tropical family of the Laurels, remarkable 

 amongst Monochlamyds for the peculiar mode in which the anthers 

 open (like those of the Barberry), is represented in our plantations by 

 the Baytree (Laurus nobilis), which is the true Laurel of the ancients 

 and of poets. 



LXIII. THE EL.2EAGNUS FAMILY. EL^AGNACE^E. 



Shrubs or trees, more or less covered with minute, silvery or 

 brown, scurfy scales, differing from the Daphne family in the 

 erect, not pendulous, ovule and seed. 



An Order of very few genera, dispersed over the northern hemi- 

 sphere. The principal one, JElceagnus, has not the clustered male 

 flowers so peculiar in our Hippopliae. One or two of its species, from 

 south-eastern Europe and Asia, are not uncommon in our shrubberies. 



I. HIPFOPHAE. HIPPOPHAE. 



A single species, distinguished as a genus by its dioecious flowers ; 

 the males in axillary clusters, with a perianth of 2 small segments and 



s 2 



