The Snowberry (Symphoria racemosa) bears considerable resemblance to the upright Honeysuckles. The flowers are funnel-shaped, and four or five lobed. The berry has four cells, but two of the cells are empty, and the others have only one seed in each. The leaves are oval, quite entire, and not connate.
Leycesteria is a very handsome shrub, with white flowers, and very large and showy purple and reddish bracts. The berries are of a very dark purple, and they are nearly as large as a gooseberry. L. formosa is a native of Nepaul, but it appears tolerably hardy in British gardens, and it stands the sea-breeze without injury.
Linnæa borealis is a little for insignificant trailing plant, which is included in this order, and which is only worth mentioning on account of its being named in honour of Linnæus. It is a half-shrubby evergreen, with small bell-shaped flesh-coloured flowers, which are said to be fragrant at night.
ORDER CI.—LORANTHEÆ.
Four genera are included in this order, all remarkable in different ways. The first of these is the common Mistletoe (Viscum album), a most remarkable parasite, a native of Britain, and generally found on old apple-trees; and the second is Loranthus europæus, a native of Germany, closely resembling the Mistletoe, but found generally on the oak, where the true Mistletoe rarely grows. This plant is said to have been introduced in 1824, but it is not now in the country. There are other species of the genera, one a native of New Holland. Nuytsia floribunda, also a native of New Holland, a very curious plant, is also included in this order. It is a shrub about three feet high, so covered with orange-coloured blossoms that the colonists call it the Fire-tree. When the seed of this plant germinates, it is said to have three cotyledons. The last plant generally included in this order is Aucuba japonica, though it is probable this plant belongs to Cornaceæ. Of this species we have probably only a variety, from the variegation of the leaves; and it has never produced seeds, as only the female plant has been introduced.
ORDER CII.—CHLORANTHEÆ.
Inconspicuous plants with greenish flowers, which require a hothouse in Britain.