Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/193

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Arbutus
559

2. Arbutus hybrida, Ker-Gawler. A hybrid.

Leaves slightly glaucous beneath; petiole ½ inch. Older branchlets fawn-coloured, smooth.

B. Leaves entire. Young branchlets glabrous.

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 ½ 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.

ARBUTUS UNEDO, Strawberry Tree

Arbutus Unedo, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. 395 (1753); Loudon, Arb. et. Frut. Brit. ii. 1117 (1838); Boswell-Syme, Eng. Bot. vi. 28, t. 882 (1866); Hooker, Stud. Fl. Brit. Islands, 243 (1878); Mathieu, Flore Forestière, 225 (1897).
Unedo edulis, Hoffmannsegg et Link, Fl. Port. i. 415 (1809).

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 following 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.