Shrubs or trees, with opposite leaves, and small blue purple or white flowers in axillary cymes. Calyx short, campanulate, 4-toothed (rarely 5-toothed), or truncate. Corolla-tube short, expanded above, the limb spreading, 4-cleft (rarely 5-cleft), the lobes equal, imbricated in the bud. Stamens 4, equal, exserted; anthers ovate or oval, their sacs parallel. Ovary incompletely 2-celled; ovules 2 in each cavity, laterally attached, amphitropous; style slender; stigma capitate, or 2-lobed. Fruit a berry-like drupe, much longer than the calyx, containing 1-4 nutlets. [Greek, handsome fruit.]

About 45 species, the following typical one of southeastern North America, the others Asiatic, African and tropical American.

1. Callicarpa Americana L. French Or Bermuda Mulberry

Fig. 3563

Callicarpa americana L. Sp. Pl. III. 1753.

A shrub, 2°-5° high, the twigs, petioles and young leaves stellate-scurfy, the mature leaves becoming nearly glabrous and glandular-dotted. Twigs terete; leaves thin, ovate, pinnately veined, slender-petioled, acute or acuminate at the apex, crenate-dentate nearly to the entire base, 3'-6' long, 1 1/2'-3' wide; cymes many-flowered, short-peduncled; pedicels very short; calyx-teeth much shorter than the tube; corolla pale blue, about 1 1/2" long; fruit violet-blue, globose, \\" in diameter, very conspicuous in autumn.

In moist thickets, Virginia to Florida, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. Bermuda. June-July. Sour-bush.

Callicarpa purpurea Juss., an Asiatic shrub often planted for ornament, with pink flowers and long leaves, has been observed in a swamp at Wilmington, Delaware.