30 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
And we read of 
" Arbutus, with his scarlet grain, 
That richly crowns Irene's plain." 
In Spain a sugar and tolerable spirit are extracted from the fruit, and in Corsica 
a wine is fermented from it. In the neighbourhood of Algiers it forms hedges, and 
in Greece and Spain the bark is used by tanners, and the charcoal made from the wood 
is highly valued. No plant is more worthy of a place in gardens and ornamental 
plantations than the Arbutus — the durability and beauty of its shining greeu leaves, 
the brownish-red colour of its young shoots, the waxy and delicate appearance of its 
flowers, which are produced in abundance at a season when most plants are beginning 
to shed their leaves, and the splendour of its bright-red fruit, which often remains on 
during all the winter — all render it a most desirable plant. It will thrive in any 
tolerably free soil, though a sandy loam appears to suit it best. 
Tribe II.— ANDROMEDEJE. 
Corolla deciduous. Fruit a capsule, superior. 
GUN US IV— A NDROMEDA. Linn. 
Calyx free from the ovary, 5-cleft or 5-partite. Corolla hypo- 
gynous, deciduous, niouopetalous, globose- or ovoid-urceolate or 
urceolate-campauulate, with 5 reflexed teeth. Stauieus 10 ; fila- 
ments subulate ; anthers with 2 horns at the apex, or obtuse, 
generally without awns, but sometimes these are present. Eruit 
a capsule, with 5 cells opening loculicidally by 5 valves break- 
ing away from the central placental column, and bearing the 
dissepiments attached along the middle of each valve. Seeds very 
numerous. 
Shrubs, undcrshrubs, or trees, with various habit, with the 
flower resembling those of Arbutus ; but the fruit is always a dry 
capsule. Inflorescence-buds scaly. It is now usually divided into 
numerous genera, but on insufficient characters. 
The name of this genus of plants was given to it fancifully, either from the con- 
stellation of the same name, or, according to Linnaeus, in allusion to the mythological 
legend of the Princess Andromeda, who was doomed to pine away on a desolate rock, 
but was rescued by Perseus ; a curious and ingenious application of the fable to the 
plant, rather far-fetched, for the plant grows and lives in damp low places, instead 
of being attached to a rock. 
SPECIES I.— A NDROMEDA POLIPOLIA. Linn. 
Plate DCCCLXXXIII. 
Reich. \r. l-'l. Germ, et ll.lv. Vol. XVII. Tab. MCXLI. Fig. 1. 
/ufloi, FL GalL et Germ. Exsicc, No. 270. 
