[Illustration: FIG. 55.—FRUIT &C. OF ARBUTUS UNEDO.] The Strawberry tree (_Arbutus Unedo_) has little bell-shaped flowers, contracted at the mouth, and with a curling-back limb, which are easily recognised as belonging to the Ericaceæ. They have ten stamens, the filaments of which are hairy at the base (see _a_ in _fig._ 55) and inserted in the disk; which in this genus is large, and rises up round the ovary (see _b_). The calyx is permanent, and five-cleft; and the flowers are produced in panicles, and each is furnished with a bract. The fruit, which retains the calyx when ripe, is a granular berry, covered with tubercles on the outside; and it has five cells (_c_) containing the seeds. There are numerous varieties of this species common in British gardens, besides a very beautiful hybrid between it and _A. Andrachne_. The latter species is a native of Greece, and rather more tender than the common kind; and it is very conspicuous in shrubberies from its red stems and loose bark. The Bearberry (_Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi_) was formerly considered to belong to the genus Arbutus, but it differs in the filaments of the stamens being smooth and dilated at the base, and the awns affixed to the middle of the anthers. The berry is without tubercles, and the cells are often only one-seeded. There are two species of Gaultheria common in British gardens: viz.—_G. procumbens_ and _G. Shallon_: both of which have flowers resembling those of the Arbutus and furnished with bracts; but in the former species the flowers are solitary and produced from the axils of the leaves, and in the latter they are in racemes, of the kind called secund, that is with the flowers growing all on one side. The berries of both kinds are eatable, and those of _G. procumbens_ are called Partridge berries in America, and the leaves Mountain tea. Both species have ten stamens, the anthers of which are two-cleft, each cell being furnished with two horns, as in _Zenobia speciosa_ (see _fig._ 54, in page 116). The fruit is five-celled and the seeds are numerous. [Illustration: FIG. 56.—FLOWER OF CLETHRA ALNIFOLIA.] The genus Clethra differs considerably from the preceding genera, as the limb of the corolla is so large and so deeply cleft, as to make the flower appear to have five petals (see _a_ in _fig._ 56). There are ten stamens, with broad arrow-shaped anthers (_b_), and a three-cleft stigma, (_c_). The capsule is dry, with three many-seeded cells. In _C. alnifolia_, a native of North America, (of which _fig._ 56 represents a magnified flower,) the flowers are erect, and produced in a spicate raceme; but in _C. arborea_, a native of Madeira, the racemes are panicled, and the flowers drooping and somewhat bell-shaped. Both species are very ornamental. TRIBE II.—RHODOREÆ.