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. v 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, (Myrica). 
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^E. 
. 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, ( Populus) Poplar. 
