CLXXVI.— THE SPURGE LAUREL. 
Daphne Laureola Linne. 
T HE Order ThymeUales is a comparatively small one, comprising some six 
hundred species in less than fifty genera and in five Families, three of which 
are exclusively African. They are mostly woody plants with simple leaves and a 
somewhat reduced type of flower, so that their exact position in the series, their 
nearest affinities, that is, are not quite clear. The flowers are cyclic and poly- 
symmetric, with a perianth of one or two whorls and one or two whorls of stamens, 
generally carried up on a receptacular tube, so as to be practically perigynous. This 
tube is free from the superior syncarpous gynaeceum of from two to four carpels. 
The three British representatives of the Order belong to the Families Thymel<eace<e 
and El<eagnace<e , the Daphne and Oleaster Families, as they may be called, two 
belonging to the genus Daphne in the former, and the third to HippophaS in the latter. 
The Family Thymel<eace<e comprises five-sixths of the entire Order. Confined to 
Tropical and Temperate regions, it seems to belong mainly to the southern parts of 
the Old World. Most members of the Family are shrubs or undershrubs, and they 
are remarkable for the very tough bast of their stems. This is especially exemplified 
in the Lace-bark tree of Jamaica ( Lagetta Lintearia Lamarck), the inner bark of which 
is used for cordage, whips, or, when pulled out under water, for lace. The leaves 
are scattered, exstipulate, and entire ; and the flowers are usually perfect and 
tetramerous or pentamerous, and in many cases are brightly coloured, sweet-scented, 
and honeyed. The perianth, united below in the tube of the receptacle, which is of 
varying length, often consists of four similar leaves which are so folded in the bud 
that two are outside both edges of the inner two. The epiphyllous stamens when 
equal in number to the lobes of the perianth appear to alternate with them ; but when, 
as in Daphne , double their number, are in two series, those in the upper of which are 
opposite to the perianth-lobes, those in the lower alternate with them. The ovary is 
generally one-chambered, with one pendulous anatropous ovule and one style ; and 
gives rise to a generally indehiscent fruit, either dry or succulent. The bark and fruit 
of many species in the Family are bitter, acrid, vesicant, and purgative, containing 
the poisonous mezerinic acid ; and, though they have been much used formerly in 
medicine and still appear in lists of officinal plants, are dangerous remedies. 
The genus Daphne , one of the larger genera of the Family, comprises some 
fifty species, natives of Temperate Asia, Europe, and North Africa. They are 
mostly low-growing shrubs with tetramerous flowers, a deciduous perianth, eight 
included stamens, a short style, and a fleshy fruit. The flower is homogamous, so 
that self-pollination is possible ; but honey is secreted by the base of the ovary and 
the flowers are generally fragrant, so that insect-pollination is the rule. The recep- 
tacular tube may be short, when it is adapted to the visits of flies ; rather longer, 
when bees are the pollinating agents ; or longer still, an adaptation to butterflies. 
