China,tan "peed Japan,and Madeira; many of them are resinous; some of pp2

Exogenous trees or shrubs, often spiny, with regular symmetrical echt small axillary, = oftenoo axile placente; stamens alter-with the petals; ndulous, and corolla valvate. A small CLXIT: Olacacee. ieee of ric pros ae“Africa. Atal and India, one onlyof the West Indies, a few of the Cape of G Hope.

ce eee3, with persistent nonstipulate leaves, with regular symmetrical vipa ng racemes; — placenta; stamens alternate, with F the petals equal to them; pendulous ovules; and imbricated corolla. CLXIIL. Cyrillacee. They are natives ofNorth America, withno known useful properti

The Brrserip orders do not at first glance present a very obvious or natural arrangement of their respective families. The union of Vines, Fumitories, and Berberis seem at first glance to be paradoxical. But botanists find in their structural anatomy resemblances which are not obvious to the uninitiated. The group is characterised by unsymmetrical flowers, a definite number of stamens, a minute embryo enclosed in a hard horny albumen; but even these characteristics fail in the typical genus Berberis, whose embryo is much larger; but then the long radicle and small cotyledons proclaim a relationship. Among these plants we have the Drosrraces, so called from éposoc, “dew,” an order of delicate herbaceous plants, chiefly marsh herbs of the south of Europe, and ranging up to the tropics; some of them, as Dionea muscipula, distinguished by the irritability of the leaves when touched by a passing insect, which close upon it suddenly and hold ita fast prisoner. The leaves of the order are usually covered with glands or glandular hairs, the flowers arranged in circinate racemes. Calyx consisting of five sepals;— there are five petals, and five to ten stamens; fruit capsular, one-and many minute seeds, having an mbes lying at the base, of abundant albumen. The Sundews, as they are sometimes called, are more remarkable for their singular red-coloured glandular hairs, which discharge a viscid acrid fluid in which i are caught; than the beauty of their flowers. The British species of the order, which flower about midsummer,are the Grass of Parnassus (Parnassia palustris)—growing in boggy places; its large white petals slightly veined,—and three species of Drosera, “es tinguished by their terminal racemose flowers on scapes, and Sous reddish glandular viscid hairs. Several of the foreign fee have the reputation of being poisonous—D. communis to sheep and cattle. D. lunata has the viscid leaves and glandular fringes which close upon insects happening to touch them, and is said to yield a

BERBERIDS.

valuable dye. D. rotundifolia, the round-leaved Sundew, has the leaves close to the ground, nearly circular, and spreading; with a roundish limb abruptly tapering into a hairy petiole, the stem erect, springing from the centre of the leafy rosette. This plant inhabits boggy places, and is often found near London and elsewhere, along with Sphagnum. It is acrid and caustic, and in Italy the liqueur called Rossali is distilled from its juices. It curdles milk, and is. said to cure corns and warts. There are about forty species of Drosera found in boggy places all over the world, except in the extremes of heat and cold. Many of them are singularly beautiful. The gaudy Dionea, whose singular irritable leaves greatly resemble the Sundews, is placed in this order by some botanists; its indehiscent fruit and erect cestivation and placenta, placed at the base of a one-celled capsule, are the chief points of difference.

The Fumariace®, or Fumitories, are herbaceous plants, with slender, brittle stems, and twisting leaf-stalks, yielding a watery juice; their non-stipulate leaves subdivided until their terminal lobes become ovate leaflefs; their flowers, two minute ragged sepals, with four exterior petals and six stamens united in two parcels. The leaves of Fumaria officinalis are succulent, saline, and bitter, and the expressed juice is recommended in cutaneous and other diseases, to correct acidity. They are named from the French word, Sumer, to smoke, from the unpleasant smell they all exhale. They are of little interest except to the botanist, to whom their sexual economy becomes an interesting study. The stamens, as we have seen, are in two bundles, the anthers being a little higher than the stigma; “the two middle ones of these anthers,” says Dr. Lindley, “are turned outwards, and do not appear to be capable of communicating their pollen to the stigma; the four lateral ones are also naturally turned outwards, but by a twist of their filament their face is presented to the stigma. They are all held firmly together by the cohesion of the tips of the flower, which, never unclosing, offers no apparent means of the pollen being distributed, so as to be shed upon the stigmatic surface. To remedy this inconvenience, the stigma is furnished with two blunt horns, one of which is inserted between and under the cells of the anthers of each parcel, so that, without any change of position on the part of either organ, the mere contraction of the valves of the anthers

is sufficient to shed the pollen upon that spot where it is required to perform the office of fecundation.”’ The Burseripace#, or Barberries, are shrubs, or herbaceous perennials, with pale green, thin, deciduous leaves. Flowers with faint pleasant odour. Fruit and leaves an agreeable acid. Characterised by the anthers opening by reflexed valves, the face of each anther-cell peeling off except at the point of attachment, where it adheres as if hinged. The stamens are opposite the petals; the flowers are usually ternary, there being three or six sepals and a like number of petals and _stamens. Anthers two-celled, carpel solitary, free, and one-celled, style rather lateral, stigma orbicular, the stamens and pistil being ranged round it; fruit, a berry, in some species a capsule. The peculiar arrangement and structure of the anthers occur in no other plants except the laurels, and in the latter it is without petals. This structure is well represented in Fig. 406, which represents an anther (Beréeris vulgaris) in the act of dehiscence, which it accomplishes by the opening of two valves, ¥, ' from which the pollen is ' shed in the form of fine dust, p. This process is said to be dehiscence by two valves, one in each lobe. or herbs of The bushes which this order consists are extremely dissimilar in habits and appearance. They belong to the temperate parts of the world, being unknown in the tropics, except on mountain ranges. ou The common

Fig. 407.—StemoftheBarberry. Berberis communis), 80 called from fepPepv, the Greek name of the fruit, is well known zon its pleasant acid flavour;glands upon its petals and pinnate leaves,

.the leaflets reduced to one, and the primary leaves to spines. The spiny leaves and stem are well represented in Fig. 407, which shows the palmate or tri-partite spiny leaves, in the axils of which buds are developed bearing true leaves; others become indurated sharp-pointed axes or spines. It is also remarkable for the irritability of its stamens; these, when the filament is touched on the inside with the point of a pin in dry weather, bend forward towards the pistil, touch the stigma with the anther, and remain curved for a short time, and then partially resume their erect position. In wet weather, when the filaments have lost their elasticity, the phenomenon is scarcely perceptible. The same result attended the experiment of applying arsenic or corrosive sublimate to the filaments; they became rigid and brittle, and lost their irritability. On the other hand, on the application of narcotics, as prussic acid or belladona, the irritability was destroyed by the filament becoming flaccid and relaxed. : The Barberries are interesting from their graceful elegance, both in their racemes of yellow flowers and rather ovate delicate berries. Their bark and root are used for dying leather and linen of a yellow colour. Several Indian species have similar properties, and the acid quality of its fruit has long placed it among the favourite febrifuges, but it may be doubted if it has any quality beyond the tefreshing flavour it imparts to water.

Botanists have divided them into:—

f I. Thin, simple leaves, solitary flowers, deciduous. B. Siberica.

II. Thin leaves, mostly deciduous flowers in racemes.

TRUE Barperrizs, 4: IIT.. Leaves leathery; evergreen; flowers solitary or in clusters,:

IV. Leaves leathery; evergreen; flowers in racemes,

~ BARBERRIES, Leaves pinnated; allevergreens.... «s+ Rapes

B, Glumacea.:

| ae 1fBeBe% Besides these, several species remain unclassed, as B L :

_ fine pinnated shrub of the N eilgherry mountains, with a black coms fruit; B. Nepalensis, which grows twelve feet high at six

thousand feet above the sea; B. tragacanthoides, with one or two. pairs of leaflets, and the points of the leaves hardened into spines, is found on the banks of the Kur, near Tiflis.

Farmers in England have an idea that the proximity of the Barberry to wheat-fields interferes with their crops. It is difficult to imagine why, unless the cidium berberidis, the fungus which is known to infest it, acts injuriously on the wheat crop, producing rust or mildew. The Viracea, or Vine tribes, consist of sarmentose and climbing shrubs, that is, with filiform twining runners; the Grape being the type of the order, which Kunth names Ampelideg, from apredoc, the vine; and Jussieu, Vites, from vitis,a vine. The order has acid properties, in common with Grossulacew and Berberacez, and includes six genera, which are for the most part found in the temperate zone of both hemispheres. Like all extensively cultivated plants, the native country of the Vine (Vitis venifera) is doubtful. Itis among the plants spoken of in the Books of Moses, when the Vine appears to have been used as it is in the present day. From this circumstance, there is little doubt of its being truly indigenous in Asia between the Black Sea and the Caspian—of Mount Ararat and of the Taurus. In the forests of Mongrelia and Imeretia it flourishes in great magnificence, climbing to the tops of the highest trees, bearing bunches of fruit of delicious flavour. The Vine is found growing wild in many parts of France and Germany, and as far north as the 55th parallel, and also all over the south of Europe and Asia Minor, and southern latitudes a3 high as 40°, but it may be doubted if it is indigenous in any part of Europe. The Sabean farm, of which Horace said,

“ Angulus iste feret piper et thusocyus uva,”

is altogether changed, for vines hang in festoons from tree to tree over the site of his abode, supposing Mr. George Dennis is correct in placing the farm in the valley of the Digentia, and the Fons Bandusiz in the narrow glen which opens just beyond it.

In Middle Germany the Vine ceases to grow at 1,500 feet above the level of the sea; south of the Alps it reaches 2,000 feet; on the Apennines and in Sicily it grows at 5,000 feet, and in the

layas it reaches 10,000 feet above the level of the Indian Ocean. In England the Vine was probably introduced by the Romans, for there are indications that vineyards were planted in the third century by the Emperor Proteus, which still existed in the eighth century, according to the Venerable Bede. William of Malmes-bury, writing in the twelfth century, commends the vineyards of Gloucestershire; and we have read somewhere that the remains of vineyards are not unusual in the south and west of England. But these must also be considered as indications of a changing climate, for although recent attempts have been made, on the system of cultivation introduced by Hoare, to establish vineyards of considerable magnitude in Wiltshire and elsewhere, we are not aware that they have prospered. This arises from the shortness of our Summers. England has a mean temperature as high as that of many countries where the Vine flourishes in perfection, but there is a want of heat and sun in the months of September and October, at which time the Vine is ripening its fruit. The fruit of the Vine is a grateful article of diet in various conditions. As fresh grapes its smell and flavour is delicious. Muscatel 8tapes, dried, which is effected by cutting half through the footstalk while suspended from the tree, form one of our finest dried fruits;and currants, or corinths, are the dried fruit of a Vine Which grows in Zante and Cephalonia. Now, what are the characteristics and organisation of the _ Vitacese? The leaves are cordiform: that is, they are slightly heart-shaped, laving two rounded lobes at the base; it throws out tendrils, or branches, borne at the point of insertion of the leaves, by the aid of which it creeps along the object on which it is placed. The 2 flowers of the Vine are disposed in a multifloral panicle, very small 4nd greenish, with a sweet odour, which in’ spring perfumes the ee fie! in the south of France, where this shrub is cultivated over an _ ™mmense surface. The panicle of flowers, with the cordate leaf, _‘*e well displayed in Fig. 408. a te calyx is small and very short, with entire or toothed margin,

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