small; petals spreading and reflexed; filaments shorter than the petals, and crowned with large cordate anthers.

Another very common genus in this class is the Bed-straw, (Galium,) an herbaceous plant, with very small white flowers; the leaves grow in whorls. In different species, the leaves thus clustered together stand around the stem in fours, fives, sixes, and eights. Some species exhibit a peculiar roughness upon the stems and leaves. This genus, with some others of a similar appearance, were arranged by Linnæus in a natural order, called Stellata,* star-like plants; the leaves radiating from the stem, as rays of light from a star.

Among the exotics of this class are the SANTALUM, which produces the sandal-wood, and the Madder, (RUBIA tinctoria,) the root of which produces a beautiful scarlet colour. The latter plant is said to have the singular property of tinging, with its red colour, the bones of the animals that feed upon it. Jussieu has arranged this, and some of the plants whose leaves grow in whorls, under the order Rubiacea. The Silver-tree (PROTEA argentea) has soft leaves resembling satin, of a silver colour. Another species of Protea, the aurea or golden, has gold-coloured leaves, which are edged with scarlet. Both these trees are natives of the Cape of Good Hope, and have never been found in any other locality.

Order Digynia.

HAMAMELIS is a shrub from 6 to 12 feet high, and is found in woods throughout the United States. Its flowers are yellow, and grow in axillary clusters. You will often meet with this plant by the road-sides on the skirts of woods; and may know it from the fact of its being in blossom after it has lost its leaves, in autumn, and even in winter. Its common name is Witch-hazel; it probably originated from the superstitious idea, which was long entertained, that a twig from this tree, called a divining rod, in the hands of particular individuals, had the property of being attracted towards gold or silver buried in the earth. Some botanists, however, ascribe the common name of this plant to its peculiarity, as to the season of blooming. By the subdividers of the Orders of Jussieu, viz. De Candolle and Lindley, this is taken from the order Berberides, and stands alone in an order, called from its generic name Hamamelidea.

Order Tetragynia.

We find here the holly, (Ilex ;) this is an evergreen, with a smooth, grayish bark; shining, thorny leaves; whitish flowers; and scarlet berries; this plant is very common in England for fences; its verdure is not impaired by the most severe winter.

* From stella, a star.

Bed-straw-What plants are placed in Linnæus's natural order Stellata, and Jussieu's order Rubiacea?-Madder-Protea-Hamamelis-Ilex.

13

the spring, in grassy fields and meadows; the colour varies from sky-blue (which gives its specific name cærulea) to a pure white. It has a small calyx, with four divisions, and a monopetalous corolla of four divisions, which gives it the appearance of a cruciform plant. The common Plantain, (Plantago,-see Fig. 126, a,) is found here; it is a plant by no means useless, although it exhibits nothing interesting to gratify the sight. The leaves are sometimes used in external applications for medicinal purposes; they are also, when young and tender, boiled and used for greens in some parts of the United States. The flowers of the plantain grow on a spike; they are very small, but each one has a calyx and corolla ; these are fourparted; the filaments are long, and the pericarp is ovate, with two cells. Canary birds are very fond of the seeds of the plantain.

Aggregate flowers. We find in this class what Linnæus called the aggregate flowers, such as have many flowers on the same receptacle; they have a general resemblance to the compound flowers in the class Syngenesia, but differ from them in having but four stamens, with anthers separate, while the Syngenesious plants have five united anthers. The aggregate flowers are not often yellow, like many of the compound flowers, but are usually either blue, white, red, or purple. The Button-bush, (Cephalanthus,) of about five feet in height, affords a good example of this natural order. The inflorescence is white, appearing in heads of a globular form, each consisting of many perfect little florets; each head has its own 4-cleft calyx, but there is no general calyx, or involucrum, for the whole. Only one species of this genus, the occidentalis,* is known, and this is entirely confined to North America. The Teasel (Dipsacus) belongs to the aggregate flowers; its inflorescence is in heads of the form of a cone. The receptacle is furnished with narrow, stiff leaves in the wild Teasel, (sylvestris ;) in the cultivated species, (fullonum,) these bristly leaves are hooked, and are used by clothiers to raise a nap or furze on woollen cloth. The Cornus, so called from the Latin cornu, a horn, on account of the hardness of the wood, is a genus composed mostly of shrub-like plants, with flowers growing in flat clusters, or cymes, like the elder. The florida, a species of Cornus, often called box-wood, sometimes dog-wood, is a beautiful ornament of our woods. It may be considered either a large shrub or a small tree; it grows from the height of fifteen to thirty feet. Its real corollas are very small, and are clustered together in the manner which is called, in botany, an aggregate. This aggregate of flowers is surrounded by that kind of calyx called an involucrum, which, in this plant, consists of four very large leaves, usually white, but sometimes of a pale rose-colour; to the latter circumstance is owing its specific name florida, or florid. You would, no doubt, on the first sight of this plant, mistake the large leaves of the involucrum for the petals. At Fig. 126, b, is a representation of a species of the cornus; the style is about the same length as the petals; these are four is number, oblong and equal.

At c, Fig. 126, is the Cissus,† or false grape; its calyx is very

* From occidens, the west, being found on the western continent,

+ Mirbel thus names the plant whose flower is here described, and places it in the class Tetrandria. Eaton describes it under the name of Ampelopsis, and places it in the class Pentandria. Although it may occasionally be found with five stamens, its four petals and four divisions of the calyx, seem to indicate that the fifth stamen is but an accidental circumstance; this seems to have been the opinion of Mirbel and some others.

Plantain-Aggregate flowers-Button-bush-Teasel-Cornus-Cissus.

small; petals spreading and reflexed; filaments shorter than the petals, and crowned with large cordate anthers.

Another very common genus in this class is the Bed-straw, (Galium,) an herbaceous plant, with very small white flowers; the leaves grow in whorls. In different species, the leaves thus clustered together stand around the stem in fours, fives, sixes, and eights. Some species exhibit a peculiar roughness upon the stems and leaves. This genus, with some others of a similar appearance, were arranged by Linnæus in a natural order, called Stellata,* star-like plants; the leaves radiating from the stem, as rays of light from a

star.

Among the exotics of this class are the SANTALUM, which produces the sandal-wood, and the Madder, (RUBIA tinctoria,) the root of which produces a beautiful scarlet colour. The latter plant is said to have the singular property of tinging, with its red colour, the bones of the animals that feed upon it. Jussieu has arranged this, and some of the plants whose leaves grow in whorls, under the order Rubiacea. The Silver-tree (PROTEA argentea) has soft leaves resembling satin, of a silver colour. Another species of Protea, the aurea or golden, has gold-coloured leaves, which are edged with scarlet. Both these trees are natives of the Cape of Good Hope, and have never been found in any other locality.

Order Digynia.

HAMAMELIS is a shrub from 6 to 12 feet high, and is found in woods throughout the United States. Its flowers are yellow, and grow in axillary clusters. You will often meet with this plant by the road-sides on the skirts of woods; and may know it from the fact of its being in blossom after it has lost its leaves, in autumn, and even in winter. Its common name is Witch-hazel; it probably originated from the superstitious idea, which was long entertained, that a twig from this tree, called a divining rod, in the hands of particular individuals, had the property of being attracted towards gold or silver buried in the earth. Some botanists, however, ascribe the common name of this plant to its peculiarity, as to the season of blooming. By the subdividers of the Orders of Jussieu, viz. De Candolle and Lindley, this is taken from the order Berberides, and stands alone in an order, called from its generic name Hamamelidea.

Order Tetragynia.

We find here the holly, (Ilex ;) this is an evergreen, with a smooth, grayish bark; shining, thorny leaves; whitish flowers; and scarlet berries; this plant is very common in England for fences; its verdure is not impaired by the most severe winter.

* From stella, a star.

Bed-straw-What plants are placed in Linnæus's natural order Stellata, and Jussieu's order Rubiacea?-Madder-Protea-Hamamelis-Ilex.

13

Fig. 127.

LECTURE XXV.

CLASS V.PENTANDRIA.

THE class which we are about to examine is said to comprehend more than one tenth part of all known species of plants. It differs from the class Syngenesia in having its five stamens separate, while the Syngenesious plants have the same number of stamens united by means of their anthers. Plants with five stamens, including those which have anthers united, are said to constitute one fourth part of the vegetable kingdom.

Order Monogynia.

Asperifolia, or Boraginea.

Here we find a group of plants called by Linnæus Asperifolia, a name derived from two Latin words, asper, rough, and folium, leaf, signifying rough-leaved plants. These have monopetalous corollas, with five stamens and five naked seeds. The seeds are dicotyledons. Jussieu forms these into the order Boragineæ, from a genus called Borago. "The change in the corolla of these plants, in general from a bright red to a vivid blue as the flower expands, apparently caused by the sudden loss of some acid principle, is a very curious phenomenon.

The Cynoglossum is, perhaps, as common as any of the asperifolia, or rough-leaved plants. Its common name is hound's-tongue, so called from its soft oval leaves. Although the Cynoglossum is classed with the rough-leaved plants, its pubescence gives to its leaves a softness appearing to the touch like velvet; it is about two feet high, the flowers are of a reddish purple, growing in panicles.† The Lungwort, (Pulmonaria,) which also belongs to this natural family, has two species in North America with smooth leaves. The Mouse-ear (Myosotis) is valued for its medicinal properties; a species, the arvensis, or Forget-me-not, is an interesting little blue flower. The Gromwell (Lithospermum) is a rough plant with white flowers; the bark of the plant contains so much silex or flinty matter, as to injure the sickles of the reapers, when it grows in the field with the grain. The name, Lithospermum, is from the Greek, lithos, a stone, and sperma, a seed, in allusion to the hardness of the seeds. The Borago is an exotic very common in our gardens. The corolla is wheel-shaped, of a beautiful blue colour, having its throat closed with five small protuberances; the stamens are attached to the tube of the corolla. You must take off the corolla carefully, and you will see the little scales which choked up the throat of the corolla, and the manner in which the five stamens adhere to it.

Lurida, or Solanea.

We next meet with a family of plants, named by Linnæus, Lurida, from their pale or livid colour. Jussieu called them the Solaneæ,

* Smith.

+ It is said that the leaves of this plant, if strewed about apartments infested with rats and mice, will expel these vermin.

Class Pentandria-How different from the class Syngenesia-What are the characteristics of the family Asperifolia ?-Cynoglossum-Lungwort-Myosotis-What other rough-leaved plants are mentioned in the first order of the fifth class? What is said of the Luridæ or Solaneæ ?

from the name of the genus Solanum. The general characters of these plants are a monopetalous corolla, of a lurid or pale appearance; five stamens attached to the base of the corolla, and alternating with its divisions; leaves alternate. The common potato (SoLANUM tuberosum) is of this natural family; the flowers of this plant are large, and the organs very plain for analysis. There is a peculiarity in the appearance of the anthers which it is well to notice; these are of an oblong form, thick, and partly united at the top, and open at the summit by two pores. The potato was not known in Europe until after the discovery of America. In the year 1597, Sir Walter Raleigh, on his return from this country, distributed a few potatoes in Ireland, where they became numerous, and the cultivation of them soon extended into England. It is said that the root of the potato is white or red, according to the colour of the flower. The little green balls, upon the stalks of this plant, are the pericarps, and contain the seed; but this plant is usually produced from the root. The little knobs called eyes, which you may notice upon the tubers of the potato, are a kind of germ or bud; in planting, the whole root is not always put into the ground, but cut into as many pieces as there are eyes, each of which produces a plant.* In the same genus with the potato, is found the Tomato and the Egg-plant. In the natural order Solanæ is the DATURA stramonium, a large, ill-looking, nauseous scented weed; with a funnel-form, plaited corolla, either white or purple; with broad, dark green leaves; when the corolla falls off, and the germ matures, it then becomes a large, ovate, thorny pericarp, often called Thorn-apple; it continues to blossom during the summer; is found by the sides of roads, around old buildings, and in waste grounds. Yet even this disagreeable plant has its uses; on account of its narcotic, and other active properties, it is highly valuable in medicine.

In the group of plants we are now considering, is the tobacco, (NICOTIANA tabacum.) This is a native of America; it was imported into Europe about the middle of the 16th century. It was presented to Catherine de Medicis, Queen of France, as a plant from the New World, possessing extraordinary virtues. The generic name, Nicotiana, is derived from Nicot, the name of the person who carried it to France. King James I. of England, had such a dislike to the fumes of this plant, that he wrote a pamphlet against its use, called “A Counter-blast to Tobacco." It is highly narcotic, the excessive use of it producing sleep, like opium. The oil of tobacco, when applied to a wound, is said to be equally fatal as the poison of a viper. The Mandrake (ATROPA mandragora) was much used by the ancients as an opiate; they had many absurd notions respecting this plant; they fancied in its roots, which are very large and of a peculiar appearance, a resemblance to the human form, and thought that some judgment from heaven would follow those who took them out of the ground. This superstition is not unlike that which is discovered, even in the present day, by those who are unwilling to sow fennel, through fear of "sowing sorrow." Perhaps those very persons who would fear to perform an act so innocent as the taking a root from the ground, or putting seeds into it, would have no dread of the anger of God for the violation of his commands.

This is more properly a continuation of the plant, than a reproduction ;-it is found that the vegetable thus continued, appears, in process of time, to degenerate, and it is necessary to renew the race by reproducing it from seed.

Describe the potato-What other plants are in the genus Solanum ?-Datura-Tobacco-Mandrake.