338

THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

part Australian trees, or

scrubby bushes of little

value to man. The Bezrv-

LACES are nativesof Kurope,

Northern Asia, and North

America, where the bushes

exist on the limits of eternal

snow; they are of little

value as timber. The sap

of the common Birch, B.

alba, is obtained in spring,

in North America, by tapping the trees; and an

agreeable sparkling wine

is obtained from it by fermentation: sugar is also

made from B. nigra, and the

bark and the leaves and

catkins are used by dyers

and tanners.

The ALTINGIACEH are

tropical plants of India,

North America, and the

Levant, storax being yielded —

by several species of Lagi

dambar, and others abounding with benzoic acid. The

SALICACE®, as we have seen,

are chiefly valuable to the

“4 basket maker, by whom most

of the numerous species are

woven into baskets andother

useful and ornamental pro-

The MyricacE#& are leafy

shrubs, or small trees, hav-

perate parts of America, the Cape of Good Hope, and India. The fragrant Gales are shrubs or trees of considerable size. The EL#AGNACER, or Oleasters, are trees or shrubs of the northern hemisphere down to the equator. El@agnus hortensis bears a fruit about the size of an olive, which is brought to market in Persia. The red drupes of E. conferta and several others are eaten in India. The only species growing wild in Britain is Hippophae rhamnoides, a spiny shrub with dicecious flowers, and small, round, orange-coloured acid berries; it grows on the cliffs near the sea; its fruit becomes rather a pleasant preserve when sufficiently sweetened. E. augustifolia is one of our most fragrant garden plants, filling the air with its perfume, while the dull yellow flowers which exhale the delicious fragrance attract little attention.

oot aprered flowers with one-flowering envelope, single carpels, an large embryo lying in a small of quantity albumen,gtdwi. LXXXIII. Stilaginacee. Stilagin:

Superior radicle, twin ovulés, straight albuminous embryo, two-lobed anthers, and ee vertical fissures, Po aeons ovule erect and solitary, embryo straight, albuminous, } LXXXIV. Urti: cacex. id, stipules small and flat in the Nettles. rane ee LXXXVv. hylla- Radicle inferior, embryo without albumen, plumule many-leaved, large — 4 erbaceous, rough.stemmed, watery plants, with solitary suspended LXXXVI ia ptinge hooked embryo, without albumen, and superior radicle. Hemp: —— iia the Hop belong to the order.

LXXXVII. Moraceæ.—Radicle superior, ovules solitary, suspended, embryo hooked, albuminous, juice milky. The Mulberry and Fig belong to the order.

LXXXVIII. Artocarpaceæ.—Trees or shrubs, abounding in milky juice, radicle superior, large convolute stipules, ovules solitary, erect or suspended, straight embryo without albumen. Includes the Bread-fruits. The Upas tree of Java belongs to the family.

Deciduous trees or shrubs with sheathing stipules, round heads of uni-mxual flowers in separate catkins, limpid juive, inferior radicle, albu-sate embryo long, no calyx, and minute plumule. The PLANES are LXXXIX. Platanacez. pseu gain temperate intertropical climates, resembling the » Sometimes called the Plane-tree with us.

The Urricars differ from the preceding group chiefly in the absence of catkins, and in some cases the presence of albumen. Tn the typical order Urticacex, containing the Nettles, Figs, the

Hop, the Mulberry, the Hemp, and the celebrated Upas tree, © species are widely diffused over every part of the world,—in the frozen North, and in the hottest tropical countries. The order, as formerly constituted, was nearly synonymous with the 8toup, but it is now limited to a few genera characterised by the causticity of the limpid juice they yield. The stinging effects Of the N, ettles, Urtica dioca and U. ureus, will be familiar to most z2

readers; but these are not to be compared for an instant with some of the East Indian species. Listen, for instance, to De la Tour's description of the effects of the sting of U. crenulata. “One of the leaves”’ he says, “slightly touched the first three fingers of my left hand; at the time I only perceived a slight pricking, to which I paid no attention. This was at seven inthe morning. The pain continued to increase. In an hour it had become intolerable; it seemed as if some one was rubbing my hand with a red-hotiron. Still there was no remarkable appearance, neither swelling, nor pustule, nor inflammation. The pain spread rapidly along the arm as far as the arm-pit. I was then seized with frequent sneezings, and with a copious running at the nose. About noon I experienced a painful contraction of the back of the jaws, which made me fear an attack of tetanus. © I went to bed, hoping that repose would alleviate my suffering; but it did not abate; om the contrary, it continued nearly the whole of the following night: but 7 lost the contraction of the jaws about seven in the evel-

Fig. 380.—Male Flower of Cannabissativa. in g.. The next day the pain left me. I continued to suffer for two days, and the = returned when I put my hand into water; and I did not finally lose it for nine days.” The CannaBInace, represented by the Hemp (Caz (Figs. 380 and 381), originally came from Persia, b become acclimatised to all parts of Europe. It is well known t nabis sativa), ut has since hat

the free libre, one of the elements of its bark, makes this plant eminently precious to man.

The Hemp is a dicecious herbaceous annual, with opposed lower leaves. The upper leaves are often alternated and deeply intersected, with from five to seven acuminate or linear lanceolated segments, strongly dentated, rough, and of a pale green colour underneath 5 two lateral stipules accompany them. The male flowers are disposed in bunches, and are composed of a calyx with five divisions and five stamens, with bilocular anthers opening from within by two longitudinal clefts, opposite to them. The female flowers are disposed in axillary leafy glome-aN rules, and present a 5 hscalyx formed by two ik divisions and a pistil i composed of an upper ip ovarium, surmounted f ) VigWa \by a short style, with very long filiform stig- we ‘); mata. The unilocular == ovarium encloses a °/~ Zp single ovule. The fruit “ is an Achenium; the seed, without albumen, 2 an embryo Fig.381.—Female Flower ofCannabissativa. folded upon itself, It is from another species of the Hemp (Cannabis Indica) that the Indians make the intoxicating liquor commonly known under the name of Huaschich. The Orientals make a deplorable abuse of its intoxicating powers.

The Hop (Humulus lupulus), a perennial plant, with voluble stems and opposite lobated leaves in the shape of a Palm, belongs to the same family as the Hemp. It is found wild in Europe in hedges and upon the banks of rivers. ‘The Hop is cultivated in England, Germany, France, and Belgium. The female flowers are

Fig. 381.—Female Flower of Cannabis sativa.

disposed in compact ovoid ears, forming cones when at maturity by of their sepales and bracts. The fruit or achenes the development are covered with a granulous powder of a greenish or golden yellow colour; they are very odorous, and contain an active principle to which chemists have given the name of Lupulin. The cones of the Hop are used in the manufacture of beer; they are tonic, and slightly narcotic. The: Moracem are trees and shrubs, sometimes climbing plants mostly yielding a milky juice. The Fig (Ficus) and the Mulberry (Morus) are natives of warm countries, where they form. vast forests, the thick trunks and strong boughs of the Fig with its ‘Travellers speak of the noble conspicuous. large head being aspect of the Wild Fig, of their gigantic dimensions, and the thick delightful shade cast by*their leafy heads. Fraser, speaking of their habits at Moreton Bay, says, “I observed several species of Ficus, upwards of one hundred and fifty feet high, enclosing immense Iron-bark trees, on which the seeds of those F ig-trees had been originally deposited by birds. Here they had vegetated and thrown out their parasitical and rapacious roots, which he close to the bark of the Iron-tree, had followed the course of the stem downwards to the earth, where, once arrived, their progres? and growth is truly astonishing. The roots increase rapidly = a number, envelop the iron-bark, and send out at the same ai to see the original that it is not unusual branches, such gigantic tree, at the height of seventy or eighty feet, peeping through the But the Pagoda- Fig as if i were a parasite on the real intruder.” one Loh: magnitude, in its all others excells Indicus) tree (Ficus being capable of giving shelter toa regiment of cavalry. This tree is anative of India and the islands of the Indian Ocean, reaching | its greatest perfectionin the villages on the skirts of the pearees a mountains. The branches cover a vast extent of ground, a their roots here and there, which as they reach the groem | parent the as rapidly increase in size till they become as large five hundred. trunk. Roxburgh says he has seen such trees full -a buneree yards round the circumference of the branches, and the feet UP se: twenty-five feet high, the principal trunk being first branches, and eight or nine feet in diameter. aetaining in a milky juice abound of Ficus species All the

caoutchouc, the best known quality of that valuable product being obtained from F. elastica. The leaves of F. Indica are ovate, heart-shaped, three-ribbed, and entire; when young, downy on both

sides, smooth when more matured, and from five to six inches long, and three to four broad, having a broad, smooth, greasy-looking gland on the under side of the leaf-stalk at the top. The figs grow in pairs from the axils of the leaves; they are downy, and about the size and colour of a ripe cherry at maturity. fF. elastica, the Indian Caoutchouc tree, will be known to most readers; it is now common in all the hothouses in the country, and numbers of fine plants may be seen in the Palm House at Kew. It has large glossy leaves, thick, oval, and pointed; small, axillary, uneatable fruit of the size of an olive, and long reddish terminal buds composed of rolled-up stipule. In its native fields it grows to the size of the European Sycamore, chiefly among decomposed rocks and vegetable matter over the declivities of mountains, growing with great rapidity as a young tree, attaining the height of five-and-twenty feet in four years, and with a trunk a foot in diameter. The milk is extracted by making incisions through the bark to the wood, at the distance of a foot from each other, all round the tree, and up to the top. After one course of tapping the tree requires to rest a fortnight, when the process may be repeated. When the liquid is exposed to the air it becomes a firm and elastic substance, fifty ounces of pure milky juice yielding about fifteen ounces of clean, washed caoutchouc. The Pippul, or Sacred Fig of India, F. religiosa, isknown by its reotless branches and heart-shaped foliage, with long attenuated points. It is common in every part of India, where it is planted for the sake of its grateful shade. It is held in superstitious veneration by the Hindus, because, according to tradition, Vishnu was born under its shade. The long pointed leaf has a wavy edge and long slender and flat footstalks, which produces a tremulous motion in the air, like that produced by the Aspen-tree (Populus tremula). Silk-worms. seem to prefer this leaf to the Mulberry, and they are used by the natives of Arabia for tanning leather. The Sycamore Fig (/. sycamorus) is a large _ tree which grows in Egypt round the villages near the coast, and Sives grateful shelter to the villagers under its widely-spreading

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