SAXIFRAGALS. Perigynous exogens, consisting of herbs, shrabe, and trees, with monodichlamydeous flowers—that is, having a calyx only, or both calyx and corolla with consolidated carpels; corolla polypetalous, if any. Herbs, shrubs, and sometim; leaves alternate, sometimes in whorls, with or without seyelen:piretdhe stems simple, often naked, CCXIV. Saxifragacer. with styles —: in number to the carpels. 8 stipules, smooth or hrubs,with opposite gr? leaves. without downy; lowers in cymes; styles distinct; calyx adherent to the CCXYV. Hydrangeacez. ule. shrubs, with opposite leaves, com ste betweene the leaf stalks;onefour or eocleft; cane. four,ust CCXVI. Cunoniacee. Pp styles dis! Trees,es, with2 eoriceong ie iepoole leaves; flowers idated styles; many-leaved ped ie CCXVII. Brexiacez.

alburn =f ous, rarely shrubby, exogens, branches quadrangular, leaves erectflowers entire, soliSet clustered; calyx tubular, with CCXVIII. aan on the margin; and consolidated style.

‘ 458 THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

The SaxtFRAGACE®, derived from saxum, “a stone,” and f/rango, “T break,” from their supposed virtues asa specificin calculus, are characterised by a calyx free or united to the ovary and divided into five segments, a corolla of five petals, ten stamens, awl-shaped filaments, and roundish anthers. Of the species twenty-four are British, most of them true rock plants, many of them old favourites, as S. wmbrosa (London Pride, None so Pretty, and other popular synonyms), usually made an edging plant in old cottage gardens. They also abound in North America, and Professor Martins found them with other old favourites on the rocky declivities of North Cape. The Canonacex are of frequent occurrence in Australia, beyond the tropics, and at the Cape of Good ope. Cunonia capensis is in great request for its timber, which is called Red Alder, or Rood Els. The Hydrangeas are met with in Northern India, Japan, and North America.

RHAMNALS. exogens, in which the corolla becomes mono-— Perigynous petalous; the flowers monodichlamydeous; carpelsconsolidated; fruit capsular, berried, or drupaceous, and definite seeds.

Shrubs, with leaves opposite, imbricate, sing 9 flowers4 pach myees eee and axillary, ‘usualyred; CCXIX. Penxacex. tubular and rudimentary cotyledon

Trees, oaktough bark and si iia: alternate or opposite ne, leaves,leaves, 2apetalous flowers, ovary of two carpels, tubular calyx, and CCXX. Aquilariacee.

oe ‘sOF shrubs, nperign sige cage usually deciduous; apeta-irregularly divided at the CCXXI. Ulmacez. edge. Treesor shrubs, sometimes spiny; leaves simple, alternate, rarely t opposite;"towersSens calyx¢ valvate; stamens opposite the CCOXXII. Rhamnacee. petals; and erect

Trees sina suaa er perp— Chailletiacer- | CCXXIII. axillary a calyx valvate; stamens alternate als; seeds pendulous a shrubs,with opposite leaves, simple, entire, or toothed ; flowers talous; ‘ XXIV. Hippocrateaces: tresovedelpion polypetalous; calyx imbricate;stamens ~ ne trees or shrubs, with alternate leaves, seldom opposite ' simile,pres bye: iowes polypetalous; = imbricate;2 CCXXYV. Celastracee. stam: in the dise, alternate with thepe j Meeeous exogens, sometimes sh i ig petalous flowers, and episepalous stam vg — sm wipe 23 t OOREYL, RINNE

Trees thd shrubs of the tr nyse gpeenlr - non-stipulate:. 2 + — ee epi stamens; ascending ovules and; CCXXVILat 8 apota COR.

Trees scene with alternate leaves, non-stipulate; toothed mono-: ae = 3 Sspearwers; stamensne i

Plate XVII.—The Common Elm (Uimus campestris

These orders consist of evergreen shrubs, trees, and herbaceous plants, which are, with few exceptions, confined to the tropics of both hemispheres and the warmer parts of Europe. The exceptions are the U_mace#, or Elms, which have usually been classed among the Urticacesé, from which Mirbel has separated them, in which he has been followed by Dr. Lindley. They differ from Urticacee in having a two-celled fruit and hermaphrodite flowers. The Elm (Ulmas campestris) (Pate XVII.) is generally found in mountain woods, and it is not uncommon to find it planted by _ road-sides and in places of public resort. It is a large tree, with branchless stem; a cone-shaped head, formed of strong ascending branches, abundantly farnished with close, compact, and regularly distichous boughs. Its leaves are alternate, furnished with two caducous stipules, oval, acute, and irregularly oblique at the base; doubly dentate, and generally pubescent and rough. They only appear after the flowers, which are reddish, and arranged in sessile fascicles, or bundles. Each flower, always without corolla, consisting of a calyx of four or five lobes, with four to five stamens opposite to these lobes, having bilocular anthers, opening from without by five longitudinal clefts; a free, two-celled ovary, containing a single anatropal ovoid. The fruit, or samara, of the Elm (Fig. 422) is dry, compressed, ae largely winged, membranous in all its circumference, —SamaraoftheElm. and unilocular. hollow at the summit, indchiscent, The various species of Elm are found wild in most parts of the world. They are trees or shrubs of the North of Asia, of the Mountains of India, of North America, China, and Europe. There is a peculiarity belonging to the seeds of the Elm; they do not produce trees precisely like the parent tree, the difference being so considerable as to have led, as most botanists think, to the multiplication of species in cases where this variation alone caused This very peculiarity, however, renders the Elm the difference. _ & favourite object in ornamental planting. The Common Elm is | oe_ Tepresented in Plate XVII. belonging to this and Styracacee, Sapotacee, The Rhamnacee, The importance. of considerable plants med'cinal produce group, purgatives;some Rhamnus are violent tries of various species of

_of them yield excellent dyes, others are grateful condiments. Among the Styracacee, which are, with some few exceptions, natives of the tropics, we find many useful properties. Storax and benzoin, the produce of Styrax officinalis and S. benzoin, are astringent and aromatic: the former, a native of Syria, but now found in the Levant, Italy, and Spain; the latter is found in the islands of the Indian Archipelago.

GENTIANS.

Perigynous exogens, with monopetalous flowers, having a minute embryo and much albumen, which separates them from Solanals, and parietal placentw, which distinguishes them from Cortusals.

Trees or shrubs, with alternate non-stipulate leaves; axillary inflo-; exe. i CCXXIX. Ebenac; stigma simple, radiating. rescence; flowers hermaphrodite

Evergi t shrubs, branches often angular, leaves alternate as of opposite; non-stipulate flowers, small, green or white; stigma at CCXXX., Aquifoliacez. the end of a style,

Trees or shrubs. with non-stinuiate 1}. + : id } CCXXXI. Apocynacez. re head. stigmai collected intoi a massive..

Herbaceous plants, shrubs, or trees, with opposite entire leaves XXXII. Loganiacer. usually with stipules intervening; flowers racemose or solitary.: f Rae se

Under-shrubs, » With densel i bri 1 ipul 1; stigma at the end of a style; flowers solitary and terminal; petals five, un- CCXXXIII. Diapensiacex. stamens five, equal and interpetalous.

Shrubs, with entire, narrow, rigid, non-stipulate leaves, in whorls, articulat e at the base;flowers in dense spikes; calyx tubular and cam- XXXIV, Stilbacez. pan ulate; corolla monopetalous; stamens equal in number to the oc i segments,

erbaceous leafless parasitical plants, non-stipulate; flowers didynamous: calyx inferior; persi stent corolla; monopetalous stamens; CCXXXV. Orobranchacee. four anthers; one-celled sti simple,i at the top of a style. }

i x ceous plants, rarely shrubs, sometimes twining; leaves opposite, non-stipulate, sessile; flowers regular, terminal, or axillary: XXXVI. Gentianacee. calyx inferior, persistent; corolla monopetalous; stigma at the oc me summit of a style.

The Gentian group range over the entire globe. They bloom on the verge of eternal snow in the Alps, in the chinks of the rocky steeps of North Cape, in the Himalayas, on Mexican mountains, and in the hottest sandy plains of India and South America. As ornamental plants, they are remarkable for the brilliant colours and beautiful form of their flowers, whose prevailing colours are either an intense blue or a clear bright yellow.

The Esenacex are Indian and tropical, although a few specie are found as far north as Switzerland in the Old World, and New

York in the New. They are chiefly remarkable for their hard black wood, sometimes variegated, and known as Ebony and Ironwood; also for the extreme acerbity of their unripe food. which include the Common Holly, are The AgurroriAce®, found. sparingly in the West Indies and South America, where yields the Paraguay tea, in the leaves of whichTlex Paraguayensis r. Stenhouse detected theine. The evergreen shrub, Prinos glabra, is employed as a substitute for tea in many parts of N orth America. In Europe the Common Holly (Ilex aquifolium), with broad, narrow, silver-blotched,its numerous varieties of gold and and thick serrated leaves, is a beautiful object in ornamental especially when clothed with its profusionclumps of shrubberies, of red or yellow berries. are trees or shrubs, chiefly or Dogbanes, The Apocynace®, to temperate alone belonging Apocynum Vinca andtropical, handsome plants, withclimates. For the most part, they are They all yield a milky juice flowers. symmetricallarge, showy, poisonous. The generally in the stem, which isby incision Tanghin poison tree of Madagascar, which was at one time used as an ordeal of guilt remarkable for its poi-or innocence, is In the Periwinklesonous properties. (Vinca minor), the calyx (Fig. 423) is five-parted, while the root, like that of the astringent.Gentians, is bitter, acrid, and Others are not only harmless, but nourish- ¥s- #. Th asennad heer of Deme- or Milk-tree Hya-Hya,ing; the description. of Sierra Leone, are of this cream-fruitrara, and Caoutchoue is yielded in abundance by Vahea gummifera, Ureeola elastica, and Willughbeia edulis. Many of them yield valuable of the poisonous pro- prevalence but from the greatmedicines, administered with caution.perties in the order they require to be Even the Oleander (Neriwm) is a formidable poison, as well as a destroyer of cutaneous vermin. It is related that while the marauding soldier cut someFrench troops occupied Madrid, a branches of Neriwm oleander to employ as spits on which to roast of the feast who partook comrades and of the twelvehis plunder, dangerously ill.seven died, and the other five were

The LoGAn1ace”, separated from the former order, are either tropical or near the tropics, a few species belonging to Australia and America. There is no order more venomous than this, which now includes Nux vomica, a drug yielded by the seeds of Strychnos Nux vomica, an Indian tree, with small greenish-white flowers, ribbed leaves, and a beautiful round orange-coloured fruit, the size of a small apple, having a brittle stalk and white, gelatinous pulp. The pulp of the fruit, according to Roxburgh, is perfectly harmless, and is greedily devoured by birds, but the seeds are extremely dangerous.

The other members of the group have few properties wraith mentioning; the OropraNcHACEs® are parasites upon the roots of other plants. The seeds, according to Vaucher, will be dormant until they come into contact with the roots of the Hemp, the plant on which it grows parasitically, when they immediately begin to germinate. The Grntianace® belong to the monopetalous exogens of De Candolle and Jussieu; they are herbaceous plants, ribbed leaves, imbricated corolla, stamens and petals, alter- ‘ Oe 4 : ‘ bf ~ 4) Qe 4)Wie? Vie ovary, superior =N5 24;

Fig. 424. M/ a ke and left of the axis of growth. As an example 07 of the order we shall limit ourselves to describing the Little — (Erythrea centaurium),

Fig. 425 It is a, little plant, common in woods, fields, and glades; its opposed leaves are entirely sessile, and disposed like thethyme. The flowers are regular and hermaphrodite; the calyx tubular, with five linear divisions. The co- Centaurea. Fig. 425.—Erythrea rolla is in the shape of a funnel, co with very long tube and limbs, with five divisions. Five stamens es

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