Part 24

These plants are for the most part evergreens; the Yellow Cistus is our most familiar example of the order. In Turkey the Rock-roses are much cultivated, they exhale a gum having a highly aromatic odour, which is there used as a perfume.

7. BERBERIDACEÆ (Berberis vulgaris) Common Berberry.

The Berberry is commonly found in our hedgerows, and its fruit is sometimes eaten; in Italy it grows to a good-sized tree. It is remarkable as furnishing an example of vegetable motion, from the irritability of its stamens, which if touched will bend forward in a curved position, and touch the stigma with the anther, and after remaining a short time in that position the stamens recover their natural form.

8. VIOLACEÆ (Viola odorata) Sweet Violet. (Viola tricolor) Heart's-ease.

The well known Sweet-smelling Violet belongs to this order, which otherwise contains no plants of importance, except one, the Cephaelis Ipecacuanha, which produces the well-known emetic bearing that name.

9. DROSERACEÆ (Drosera rotundifolia) Sun-dew.

The Sun-dew is so called from the globules of a sort of viscid liquid excreted by the hairs of this plant while in sunshine, and looking like dew; some species of this order have their leaves so irritable that an insect alighting on them causes them to shut up and catch it, hence the name "Venus's Fly Trap" (Dionea muscipula) which is given to an American species.

10. POLYGALACEÆ (Polygala vulgaris) Milk-wort.

The Polygala Senega, or Virginian Snake-root, is a member of this order; it is celebrated in America for the cure of the bite of snakes, and is used here as an expectorant. The Rhatany, a very powerful astringent, is also of this order.

11. CARYOPHYLLACEÆ (Lychnis dioica) Bachelor's Buttons. (Dianthus caryophyllus) Common Pink. (Stellaria media) Chickweed.

There are upwards of a thousand species of this order, but none are of much importance; they form however many of our most beautiful ornamental garden flowers, of which the Carnation, Sweet William, and several others, are familiar to all.

12. TILIACÆ (Tilia Europæa) Lime Tree.

The Lime Tree grows often to a great size, is a fine handsome tree, commonly found in our plantations, has heart shaped leaves, and flowers generally in corymbs; it is very general in tropical climates, and produces a fine close grained wood.

13. HYPERICACEÆ (Hypericum perforatum) Perforated Hypericum.

Many species of Hypericum are cultivated in our gardens, and form handsome flowers; the well known plant called Aaron's Beard (Hypericum calycinum) is a member of this order, and is remarkable for the long runners which it throws out forming fresh plants at intervals. It is often suspended in pots, from which these runners descend in a very graceful manner.

14. MALVACEÆ (Malva sylvestris) Common Mallow. (Althæa officinalis) Marsh Mallow.

The Marsh Mallow has been much esteemed as a demulcent medicine, and an ointment is made from it for external use; but one species of this order, the Gossypium, is one of the most important plants in the whole world, producing that most useful article, cotton, so largely grown in America, and for which the slave population are chiefly employed. The fine white hairs surrounding the seeds and filling up the pod is the part picked out and preserved, it forms the cotton-wool of commerce, of which some eight hundred millions of pounds' weight are used annually! employing a million and a half people, in England alone, and furnishing clothing to hundreds of millions. It is grown in India, which is supposed to be its native place, and will probably be grown to a much greater extent when railways and canals shall have made a more easy communication from the interior of that country to the sea-board.

15. GERANIACEÆ (Geranium pyreniacum) Meadow Geranium.

Many species of this order are indigenous, and when cultivated produce some of our most beautiful garden flowers, as the Geraniums, Pelargoniums, and Erodiums. The Geraniums are those species which have five irregular petals and ten stamens; they are the most characteristic of the order.

16. LINACEÆ (Linum usitatissimum) Common Flax.

The Flax plant is another of those insignificant plants which, from certain properties they possess, have become the greatest boons to mankind; the stalks of the Linum usitatissimum, soaked, bruised, and prepared by combing, &c., form the flax of commerce, from which all our linen fabrics are made. The manufacture of flax is one of the oldest arts known, the ancient Egyptians formed their mummy-cloths from this article, and a piece of one of these cloths, bleached and placed side by side with some of the present date, would hardly suffer by the comparison, but the rapidity of its manufacture, and the price at which supplied, are doubtless very different in the two cases.

The value of the linen manufacture of Great Britain is between seven and eight millions yearly.

The seeds of the flax plant (Linseed) are used to crush and produce the linseed oil of commerce so extensively used in the production of paints and varnishes, and the cake is used as food for cattle.

17. ACERACEÆ (Acer campestre) Maple Tree. (Acer pseudoplatanus) Sycamore Tree.

This order contains the Maple and Sycamore, fine trees, not only ornamental, but producing wood much in request, moreover the Acer saccharinum or Sugar Maple of North America is used to produce sugar, which is obtained from its sap.

18. RUTACEÆ (Ruta graveolens) Rue.

Rue is a well-known shrub with small pinnate leaves, and possessing a strong and very disagreeable odour; this depends upon the volatile oil which is contained in the glands with which the leaves are dotted. It has been, from time immemorial, used as a medicine. Another member of this order, the Buchu (Diosmia crenata), is also used medicinally.

19. OXALIDACEÆ (Oxalis acetosella) Wood Sorrel.