200 
POPULAR FLORA. 
4. Cherry or Sweet B. Tree, with heart-ovate and pointed leaves, downy on the veins beneath 
and a close bark, bronze-colored on the twigs, which are spicy-tasted, like the foliage of Check* 
erberry. Common N. B. lenta, 
87. SWEET-GALE FAMILY. Order MYRICACEJE. 
Shrubs (generally low), with fragrant alternate leaves; and with catkins much as in the 
Birch family, but short and with only one naked blossom under each scale ; the ovary 
forming a little nut or dry drupe. 
Flowers monoecious : fertile catkins round and bur-like : fruit a smooth little nut. Leaves 
lance-linear, pinnatifid. Fern-like, whence the common name, ( Comptonia) Sweet-Fern. 
Flowers dioecious: scales of the fertile catkins falling off, and leaving only the small 
round fruits, which are incrusted with wax, and so appear like drupes. Leaves 
entire or serrate, ( Mynca ). 
One species in wet grounds, N., with wedge-lanceolate pale leaves, ( M . Gale ) Sweet-Gale. 
One on the sea-coast with lance-oblong, shining leaves, and waxy fruit, ( M. cerifera) Bayberry. 
88. WILLOW FAMILY. Order SALICACE^. 
Dioecious trees or shrubs, with both 
kinds of blossoms in catkins (often 
earlier than the foliage) ; the flowers 
naked (without any calyx or corolla), 
one sort of two or more stamens 
under a scaly bract; the other of a 
one-celled pistil with two styles or 
stigmas, making a many-seeded pod : 
the seeds bearing a long tuft of down. 
Leaves alternate and simple : wood 
soft and light : bark bitter. — The 
Willows are of very many species, 
and are much too difficult for the 
beginner. 
494. Shoot and catkin of sterile flowers of the Com- 
mon White Willow. 495. A scale separated, with its 
flower, consisting of two stamens and a little gland, 
magnified. 496. Shoot and fertile catkin of the same. 
497 A pistillate flower with its scale and gland, mag- 
nified. 
Scales of the catkins entire: stamens 2 to 6: stigmas short: leaves narrow, ( Salix ) Willow. 
Scales of the catkins cut-lobed : stamens 8 to 40 : stigmas long : leaves broad. Scaly leaf- 
buds covered with a resinous varnish, ( Pojmlus ) Poplar 
