VI. 2. THE SWEET FERN. 225 
fal 
tallow, to make candles. It has sometimes, also, been mixed 
with beeswax for the same purpose. Candles made of it diffuse 
avery agieeavble perfume, but give a less brilliant ight than those 
made entirely of animal substance. The wax of the bay berry 
is also made into hard soap with the ley of wood ashes, lime, 
and common salt; one pound of wax being sufficient for ten 
pounds of soap, and taling the place of the animal or vegetable 
oils used in the manufacture of common soaps. A decoction of 
the root has been sometimes used as a remedy for dysentery. 
VI 2. THE LIQUIDAMBER. COMPTONTIA. Banus. 
Low shrubs with flagrant leaves, fern-like, long, slender, 
narrow, and deeply cut on both sides into roundish lobes, and 
globular, compound, bristly, bur-like fruits, with roundish, 
smooth nuts. ‘There 1s a single species: 
Tue Sweet Fern. Comptonia asplenifolia. Aiton. 
A flagrant. round-headed bush. about two feet high. abound- 
ing on hill sides and in the openings in woeds. It has the ap- 
pearance of a miniature tree. The recent shoots are green 
or of a yellowish or reddish brown somewhat downy, and 
sprinkled, as are the leaves and stipules on both surfaces, 
and the older branches towards the extremities. with mimute, 
yellow, shining, resmous dots. The branches of a year’s 
growth are yellowish brown, with a polished, shining surface, 
somewhat hairy. ‘The lower ones curve down and then up- 
wards, forming an inverted arch. ‘The older ones are reddish 
purple or coppery brown, rather rough, and closely dotted with 
raised, brown dots. ‘The roots are long and creeping, and throw 
up numerous stems. 
‘The leaves are nearly sessile, very long and narrow, from 
one to six inches long and less than one inch wide, pointed, cut 
into large, obtuse-angled teeth, by indentations reaching nearly 
to the mid-rib, dark green, impressed at the veins above, paler 
and downy on the mid-rib and veins beneath; with the margin 
somewhat reflexed. The stipules are half an inch long, lance- 
olate, acuminate, auriculate, or half-arrow-shaped, and often 
30 
