_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.) 1. H. Virginiàna, L. Leaves obovate or oval, wavy-toothed, somewhat downy when young; blossoming late in autumn, when the leaves are falling, and maturing its seeds the next summer.--Damp woods, N. Scotia to Fla., west to E. Minn. and La. 2. FOTHERGÍLLA, L. Flowers in a terminal catkin-like spike, mostly perfect. Calyx bell-shaped, the summit truncate, slightly 5--7-toothed. Petals none. Stamens about 24, borne on the margin of the calyx in one row, all alike; filaments very long, thickened at the top (white). Styles 2, slender. Capsule cohering with the base of the calyx, 2-lobed, 2-celled, with a single bony seed in each cell.--A low shrub; the oval or obovate leaves smooth, or hoary underneath, toothed at the summit; the flowers appearing rather before the leaves, each partly covered by a scale-like bract. (Dedicated to the distinguished _Dr. John Fothergill_.) 1. F. Gardèni, L. (F. alnifolia, _L. f._)--Low grounds, Va. to N. C. April, May. 3. LIQUIDÁMBAR, L. SWEET-GUM TREE.