NAT. ORDER. SPIRJEACE/E. 
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branches ; the branches and branchlets are alternate, those of the 
last year very smooth and yellow, leafy, and terminated by an umbel ; 
the leaves are alternate, on very short petioles, smooth, glaucous, 
wide ovate, retuse, gash-trilobate ; they vary even in the garden, 
with more or less frequent gashes, with the teeth obtuse or acute, 
in breadth ; the umbels are very frequent at the ends of the annual 
branches ; peduncles often more than thirty, besides a few axillary 
ones scattered below the umbel ; flowers middle sized, white. This 
is an elegant shrub, and a native of Siberia. 
Spiraa opidifolia. Currant-leaved Spiraea. — This species rises 
with many shrubby branching stalks, eight or ten feet high, in good 
ground, but generally five or six ; they are covered with a loose 
brown bark, which falls off ; the leaves are about the size and shape 
of those of the common currant-bush, ending in acute points, and 
serrate on their edges ; the flowers are produced in roundish bunches 
at the end of the branches ; they are white, with some spots of a 
pale red. It is a native of Canada and Virginia, and is mostly 
known in the nurseries by the name of Virginian Golden Rose. 
Spircea sorbifulia. Service-leaved Spiraea.— This kind rises 
with shrubby stalks like the first, but sends out horizontal branches, 
which are slender, and covered with a brown bark ; the leaves are 
of a thin texture, and a bright green color on both sides, slightly and 
acutely serrate ; the flowers are in terminating panicles, small and 
white. It is a native of Siberia, and produces its flowers in August. 
Spircea aruncas. Goat's-beard Spiraea. — This species has a 
perennial root • the stem is annual, and from three to four feet in 
height: the leaves are doubly pinnate, each having three or four 
pairs of oblong leaflets, terminated by an odd one ; they are two 
inches long, and almost an inch broad, serrate, and ending in acute 
points ; the flowers are disposed in long slender spikes, formed into 
loose terminating panicles, which are small, white, and of two sexes 
in the same spike. It is a native of Germanv, and flowers in June 
and July, 
