Dionæ̀a muscípula, Ellis, the Venus's Fly-trap,—so noted for the extraordinary irritability of its leaves, closing quickly at the touch,—is a native of the sandy savannas of the eastern part of N. C. It differs in several respects from the character of the order given above; the stamens being 15, the styles united into one, and the seeds all at the base of the pod.
Order 38. HAMAMELÍDEÆ. (Witch-Hazel Family.)
Shrubs or trees, with alternate simple leaves and deciduous stipules; flowers in heads or spikes, often polygamous or monœcious; the calyx cohering with the base of the ovary, which consists of 2 pistils united below, and forms a 2-beaked, 2-celled woody capsule, opening at the summit, with a single bony seed in each cell, or several, only one or two of them ripening.—Petals inserted on the calyx, narrow, valvate or involute in the bud, or often none at all. Stamens twice as many as the petals, and half of them sterile and changed into scales, or numerous. Seeds anatropous. Embryo large and straight, in scanty albumen; cotyledons broad and flat.
[*] Flowers with a manifest calyx, or calyx and corolla, and a single ovule suspended from the summit of each cell.
1. Hamamelis. Petals 4, strap-shaped. Stamens and scales each 4, short.
2. Fothergilla. Petals none. Stamens about 24, long; filaments thickened upward.
[*][*] Flowers naked, with barely rudiments of a calyx and no corolla, crowded into catkin-like heads. Ovules several or many in each cell.
3. Liquidambar. Monœcious or polygamous. Stamens very numerous. Capsules consolidated by their bases in a dense head.
1. HAMAMÈLIS, L. Witch-Hazel.
Flowers in little axillary clusters or heads, usually surrounded by a scale-like 3-leaved involucre. Calyx 4-parted, and with 2 or 3 bractlets at its base. Petals 4, strap-shaped, long and narrow, spirally involute in the bud. Stamens 8, very short; the 4 alternate with the petals anther-bearing, the others imperfect and scale-like. Styles 2, short. Capsule opening loculicidally from the top; the outer coat separating from the inner, which encloses the single large and bony seed in each cell, but soon bursts elastically into two pieces.—Tall shrubs, with straight-veined leaves, and yellow, perfect or polygamous flowers. (From ἅμα, at the same time with, and μηλίς, an apple-tree; a name anciently applied to the Medlar, or some similar tree.)