_Castanea_ (Eating-chestnut, Fig. 332). The catkins are erect (_A_), cylindrical, with the ♀ at the base and the ♂ at the top, or some are entirely ♂ and _composed of small dichasia_. The _cupule_ (_C_, _F_) is 4-_valved_, provided with spines, and entirely envelops the 3 _nuts_; it is already developed at the time of flowering.--~♂-flowers are most frequently borne in 7-flowered dichasia, and have a well developed perianth, most frequently consisting of 6 leaves in two whorls (Fig. 332 _B_), and a large number of stamens. ♀-flowers are most frequently borne in 3-flowered dichasia (Figs. 332 _C_, 333); the letters in Fig. 333 indicate the older theory, according to which the 4 bracteoles (α′-β′) of the two lateral flowers are thick and united into a single 4-valved, _woody cupule_, which surrounds the 3 nuts, and is furnished externally with spines; the spines are well developed hair-structures.--6 carpels in two whorls.--The leaves in the vertical shoots have a divergence of 2/5, 3/8, 5/13; on the horizontal shoots they are alternate. The cotyledons remain underground on germination.~ [Illustration: FIG. 333.--Diagram of the cupule of _Castanea_.] [Illustration: FIG. 334.--Female flower of _Fagus_ (mag.)] _Fagus_ (Beech). The ♂-catkins are pendulous, capitate; the ♂-flowers have an obliquely bell-shaped, fringed perianth, with 6–20 stamens. ♀-catkins erect, 2-flowered, borne singly in the axil of foliage-leaves of the same year; the ♀-flower has a gynœceum formed of 3 carpels, bearing an epigynous, 6-leaved perianth (Fig. 334). In this genus _the dichasium has only 2 flowers_, the central one being suppressed. _The cupule contains_, therefore, only 2 triangular nuts (“mast”). ~All the shoots have the leaves arranged in two rows; the rows are on the underside, being only about 90° distant from each other; the buds on the other hand approach each other towards the upper side. The bud-scales are stipules without laminæ; in vernation the laminæ are folded along the lateral ribs, the upper lateral portion being the largest (as in Hornbeam and Chestnut). The cotyledons are folded, and at germination are aerial, large, and reniform. 4 species (Europe, Japan, N. Am.)--_Nothofagus_ (S. Am., New Zealand, S. Austr.)~