The Saco Trex (Sagus rhumphii), originally from ie _ Isles, contains in its often voluminous stem. a very eps fecula; but the finest sago is said to be prepared from as: ~ and genuina., ee The Arxc Para (Areca catechu), indigenous to India and Cey'* 7 furnishes a highly valuable catechu. The albumen of 158° . i ; chalk, and enclosed inain leafLeeba powdered with slices, cut up in the Betel tree, is. much used by native Indians Lace a digestion. Another species of Aree (Areca oleracea)® E ticularly esteemed for the excellence of its large a

young shoots, commonly known under the name of the Palm Cabbage.

: The Rorane (Calamus) has a slight stem, few or no leaves, but L limbers, by means of which it sometimes extends itself along the

whole length of a tree, passing from one branch to another tor a length of 1,500 to 1,800 feet; from this tree the polished and flexible canes are made, known by the name of Malacca canes. the trunk of Andicola), (Ceroscylon of the Andes The Ceroscyle which in Persia rises to a height of 200 feet, produces a wax, which exudes from its leaves and from the base of its petioles.

Tue NARCISSALS. Passing over the Hypratzs, which are represented by the exalbuminous seeds water plants with Hydrocharidacex,—floating and declinous flowers; natives of fresh water in Europe, North America, and the East Indies;—the Na1aps, inhabiting both fresh water and the ocean, in which traces of the great class of Thal- TRICOREDACE,;—the small perennial logens are still observable with creeping rhizome and simple erect and cellular stem;—the whose habitat is the bottom of the or sea-wracks, TorTERACE®, ocean in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean,—we reach the Narcissals. The Nancissars are distinguished from all preceding Endogens leaves, often covered with by their short stem, rigid channeled cubicular scales, spinous points, and flowers of gay colour, borne of which the most Bromeliacee, in racemes or panicles in the celebrated for Pine-apple, species is the well-known remarkable

: the sweetness and aroma of its fruit. : The tuberous rooted Taccacem are large perennial herbs, found South-Sea in the India, parts of in the hotter woods in damp xmoporack® Islands, and in the tropical parts of Africa. The HL are herbaceous plants, with fibrous perennial roots, and permar natives ch flowers; iefly of nent sword-shaped leaves and woolly Australia.. North America, the Cape of Good Hope, and order of herbaceous: is an inconsiderable Hyroxmpace® plants, with tuberous or fibrous perennial roots, natives of the Cape Good Hope, Australia, the East Indies, and tropical America. plants, occasionally Py bulbous are generally The AMARYLLIDACER leaves ensiform stem, woody cylindrical with a tall rooted, fibrous have ~ which plants, elegant veins,—singularly parallel__-with The greenhouses. of the inhabitants the favouritebeen

includes the Daffodil, the Belladonna and Guernsey Lily, the (Hemanthus) of the and Blood-flowersshowy Brunsvigias characterisedCape of Good Hope, and the American Aloe—all by their six stamens, a brilliantly coloured flower, and inferior ovary. With all their beauty, however, there is no family of The viscid gumplants possessed of more noxious properties. toxicarius is used by thedrawn from the bulb of. Hemanthus The commonnatives of South Africa to poison their arrow-heads. daffodil and snow-drop contain an acrid principle which renders (pseudo-Narcissus) arethem emetic. The flowers of Narcissus not only emetic, but a dangerous poison. On the other hand, and from the properties,many of them possess fine medicinal succulent root of Alstremera palida fine arrow-root is prepared. Others of the tribe, as Bomarea salsilla, yield a substitute for sarsaparilla. The American Aloe (Agave Americana), which ac-fable only blooms once in a hundred years, cording to gardening forms an impenetrable fence with its hard spinous leaves, while its fibre forms excellent cordage after being steeped in water for Some time, and the succulent substance beat out of it... Ime cultivated, sap of an Mexico, where the aloe is extensively out the inner sourish taste is drawn from it by cutting agreeable leaves just before the flower-scape is ready to burst forth. This resembling cider, beverage, forms a vinous fermented, sap, when liquor intoxicating a very by distillation while “pulque,”’called considerable This sap yields a very 1s made from the pulque. Tevenue to the State. Plantains and with the Narcissals connect the The Inmace# between distinction external the chief or Amomals; Bananas, development of the foliage. the two being a singular change in the In the N. arcissals, and especially in the Iris and Gladioles, the running with the veins and sword-shaped, slender, leaves are long, to the apex; but in the Musacez and converging ™ parallel lines to the midrib—a perpendicular the veins run other Amomals, vergence which gives to the foliage a totally different character. —

The Irids are herbaceous Endogens, in which the exterior of three stamens, *nvelope of the flower or the calyx is composed to them three and opposite turned outward,Dhow the anthers Nhly-coloured sepals, recurving outwardly, as shown in Fig. 356, —

where s s 8 represent the three reflexed or bent-back richly-coloured sepals, and p p p the erect petals at the summit of the flower. These six divisions, which are free in the young plant, and arranged in two rows, are afterwards united, and form 4 perianth of singular appearance, taking a tube-like form towards the base. On depressing the sepals, three stamens with broad flattened filaments and elongated anthers, bifurcated in the form of an arrowhead, are observed opening ‘\ two longitudinal grooves filled 283) with voluminous pollen seeds. These stamens, which are 4t first completely independent of the perianth, are united

Fig. 56 in the adult state to that organ. Petals and Sepals of the Iris. The pistil consists of an inferior ovary united to a style attached by its base to the foot of the tube of the perianth, and terminating in three petaloid stigmatiferous leaves. The ovary presents three cells, enclosing numerous ovules attached to its middle, oF anatropally disposed in two series placed at the internal angle of cach cell. The fruit 18 capsular, and opens into three distinet a tions, divided by valves at the centre. Fig: 357 shows this loculicidal dehiscence, the valves with the septe in the centre, each valve being formed of the half of the contiguous carpel. The seeds being horizontal and flattened, present a straight embryo placed in an axis of

Fig. 357. Capsule of the Iris, fleshy albumen. The Iris has a thick, branching, fleshy, horizontal phizome, @ part in Jy im The simple or branching stem. The leaves are for the most iasciculate radicles folding longitudinally, and attached near their whole length by the two halves of their internal face.

central veins correspond with the outer edge. The cauline leaves are alternate and sheathing. The flowers form a sort of composite cluster, which are of great volume, and exhale a most agreeable odour. The genera are numerous, inhabiting all the temperate parts of

Fig. 358.—Iris Germanica. S ” World; the Iris and Crocus representing the order in the _“rthern, as the brilliant Gladioles and Ixias do in the southern

hemisphere. Most of the genera are strikingly beautiful, the number and brilliancy of the varieties in the Gladiolii by cultivation alone being almost unexampled.

Among the interesting species which constitute the genus Jris we may mention the [ris Germanica (Fig. 358); the Tris Forentina, the rhizome of which produces the violet-scented orris root, and gives out a very decided odour of violets, which causes it to be used extensively in preparing perfumery. The cultivated Saffron, Crocus sativas, isa native species, the stigmata of which form a crest containing a very odorous volatile oil united with a bitter principle; it is employed in medicine, and also in painting. The GuapIoLEs have bi-labiate flowers of great brilliancy; they are chiefly natives of Southern Africa.:

Tieripia Pavonta, so called from its spotted and brilliantly coloured flowers, is another of the Bulbous plants for which we are indebted to tropical America. It is a native of Mexico, remarkable at once for its large size, originality of form, and lively colours. '

ORCHIDACER.

Passing over the Musacr%, so celebrated for the nutritive ge yielded by their fruit, known in tropical countries as ee and bananas; the ZinziBERacm, distinguished for the beauty. oe their floral appendages, as in Hedychium coronarium, and for oe rich and glowing colours of the bracts in Curcuma Rosceana—the - are still more valued for the aromatic stimulating poe 4 their rhizome;—the Maranracea, valued for the fecula whie 7 abounds in the rhizome and fleshy corms of Canna and ers as other genera,—we reach the interesting family of ORCHIDS. ~ 8 ORCHIDACE® are a group of Epigynous Endogens, with one °: three stamens, consolidated with the style into a central eer = and the seeds without albumen. They are herbaceous sere shrubs, always perennial, and they occur in all parts of the wor: In but in the warmer latitudes they occur in countless numbe andinthe forests of tropical America, in the Indian Archipelage, ade India and other hot countries, they generally are ep!P ee 2 attaching themselves to the branches of trees, stones, and TOCK* "—

which they fix themselves by means of their long fleshy roots. In temperate countries epiphytes are rare, although we have | instances of them in our own climate, where the Bird’s Nest Orchis, Neottia nidis avis—a brownish scaly plant spinging up occasionally in woods, deriving its nourishment from the roots of the tree upon which it grows, and the other Malaxis paindosa, is found growing parasitically upon the mosses in spongy bogs. “There is no order of plants,’’ says Dr. Lindley, in one of his papers on Orchidules, in the “ Penny Cyclopedia,” “ the structure of whose flowers is so anomalous as regards the relation borne to each other by the facts of reproduction, or so singular in respect to the form of the floral envelope. Unlike other endogenous plants, the calyx and corolla are not similar to each other in form, texture, and colour; neither have they any similitude to the changes of outline that are met with in such irregular flowers as are produced in other parts of the vegetable creation. On the

contrary, by an excessive development and singular conformation of one of the petals called the labellum or lip, and by irregularities © either of form, size, or direction of the other sepals and petals, by the peculiar adhesion of these parts to each other, and by the occasional suppression of a portion of them, flowers are produced 80 grotesque in form that it is no longer with the vegetable kingdom that they can be compared, but their resemblance’ must be sought in the animal world. Hence we see such names among our native plants as the Bee, Fly, Man, Lizard, and Butterfly Orchis, and appellations of a like nature in foreign countries.” Of these resemblances some idea may be formed by the annexed engraving, where 1 represents Oncidium raniferum, or the frog Oncidium, so called because its lip bears at its base the figure of 4 frog couchant;2, Peristeria elata, the Spirito Santo plant of Panama, in whose flower we find the likeness of a dove in the act of descending on the lip; 3 is Prescottia colorans, whose lip is a fleshy hood; 4, Gongora fulva; 5, Cirrhea tristis;6, Cynoches ventricosum, _‘Singularly like a swan, the arched column forming the head and heck; 7, Oncidium pulvinatum; 8, Balbophyllum barbigerum; 9, Catasetum viride; and 10, Peristeria cerina. ‘The roots, according to the same authority, are, (1) slender,.simple-branched fibres of a : “ent nature, incapable of extension, but burrowing on the ney x

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