Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/193

Rh 2. Arbutus hybrida, Ker-Gawler. A hybrid.
 * Leaves slightly glaucous beneath; petiole ½ inch. Older branchlets fawn-coloured, smooth.

3. Arbutus Andrachne, Linnæus. Albania, Greece, Asia Minor, Crimea, Caucasus.
 * Leaves slightly glaucous beneath, contracted into short broad points at the apex, tapering at the base in cultivated trees ; petiole 4 inch.

4. Arbutus Menziesii, Pursh. Western N. America, from British Columbia to California.
 * Leaves glaucous, almost white, beneath ; rounded or with a minute sharp point at the apex ; sub-cordate or rounded at the base; petiole 1 inch.

A small tree, attaining in Ireland 40 feet in height and 10 feet or more in girth, usually a shrub in the Mediterranean region. Bark rough, brownish-red, more or less fissured, and only rarely scaling off in part. Young branchlets reddish or green, covered with gland-tipped hairs, which persist in the second year ; older branchlets brown, rough, slightly fissuring on the surface. Buds minute, reddish; scales imbricated, ovate, acute, ciliate. Leaves 2 to 4 inches long by 1 to 2 inches broad, very variable in shape, oblong, oblong-lanceolate, elliptic, or ovate, acute at the apex, tapering at the base; upper surface dark-green, glabrous and shining ; lower surface pale-green, glabrous, with prominent midrib and inconspicuous pinnate-reticulate venation; margin serrate or biserrate, the serrations acute or rounded. Petioles short, about ¼ inch long, glandular-pubescent.

Flowers appearing in autumn, inodorous, in short drooping glabrous terminal panicles. Calyx-lobes minute, triangular. Corolla usually white, rarely pinkish, urceolate, with rounded ciliated teeth; ovary glabrous. Fruit ripening in the follow- ing autumn, at the same time as the appearance of the flowers of the succeeding year; a stalked berry, pendulous, sub-globose, ¾ inch in diameter, orange-scarlet, densely covered with minute pyramidal spine-like excrescences, edible, superficially resembling a strawberry, but entirely different in structure.

Seedling.—Cotyledons two, raised above ground on a short caulicle, oval, rounded at the apex, abruptly narrowed at the base into a flat petiole, entire, ¼ inch long, dull-green above, pale-green beneath. Young stem reddish, with short glandular hairs; primary leaves alternate, minute, oval or obovate, serrate and minutely glandular-pubescent in margin; tap-root about 2 or 3 inches long.