Osyris
(the old Greek name used by Dioscorides). Poet's Cassia. ORD. Santalaceae. A small genus (five or six species) of greenhouse evergreen glabrous shrubs, natives of South Europe, nearly the whole of Africa, and the East Indies. Flowers small, sub-dioecious, peduncled; the males in a few-flowered, lateral raceme; the fertile flowers sometimes solitary. Fruit drupaceous, one-seeded, crowned by the limb of the perianth. Leaves narrow or ovate, alternate, entire, papery or rather thick. The undermentioned species, probably the only one introduced, thrives best in a sandy-loam soil. Propagated by cuttings of ripened shoots, inserted under a hand light, in spring.
O. alba (white). fl. white, pedunculate upon the branchlets. July. fl. drupaceous, red, about the size of a pea. l. alternate, linear-lanceolate, 1in. long. Stem roundish, striated. h. 3ft. to 4ft. Mediterranean region, 1793. (S. F. G. 954.)