BUR-REED.

BRANCHED BUR-REED.

SPARGANIUM.

Sparganium ramosum.

Plate 14-Fig. 5.

Also a mud plant, growing in ditches, &c. flowering in July, but very different In appearance from the last. The stem is round and branched. The root-leaves are very long, swordshaped, rather wide below, and hollowed out at the sides-the stem-leaves narrower and shorter, bracts still more so, both clasping the stem. Flowers collected in several distant round heads. Those with stamens on the upper part of the plant, those with pointals, below.

O. S. Unbranched Upright Bur-reed-and Floating Bur-reed, neither very rare. The last grows in such great abundance in the quieter part of the Thames as materially to impede the passage of boats, covering sometimes whole acres with its very long, narrow, thin leaves, but never seen in flower-this is here mentioned because very many good botanists have been puzzled to know the name of the plant alluded to.

ARROW-HEAD.

SAGITTARIA.

COMMON ARROW-HEAD. Sagittaria sagittifolia.

Plate 14-Fig. 6.

Abundant in ditches and rivers, a fine and curious plant, growing two or three feet above the water, and producing large, white flowers, of three petals each, inclosed in a calyx of three leaves. Some of the flowers have very numerous pointals, collected into a head. Leaves, when under water, long and strap-shaped, but as soon as they rise above the surface, the lower part of them becomes rounded into a footstalk, and the upper part expanded, until it becomes perfectly arrow-shaped. It flowers in July and August.

CUCKOO-PINT.

CUCKOO-PINT.

ARUM.

WAKE ROBIN. Arum maculatum,
Plate 14-Fig. 7.

This plant not only deserves but receives universal attention, on account of its very peculiar structure. The leaves are spotted, all from the root, and somewhat arrow-shaped, but not exactly so. They rise from the ground very early in the season, and soon after they have expanded, that is, in April or May, there appears amongst them, a long, upright,

light green sheath, which is rolled up, and at the lower part swelled out, and joined to a short, thick, fleshy stemgradually this sheath unfolds, and then displays one of the most singular looking, club-shaped bodies. The upper part of this is like velvet, and of a pink, or more commonly mulberry color, growing darker as it gets older, a little lower down is a belt of imperfect stamens, then another belt of two-celled anthers or true stamens, and below these at a little distance a belt of germens or young seed-vessels. After a time the upper part of the spike and the sheath dies away, and the germens grow into a cluster of most beautifully scarlet berries, which remain all the winter. These are poisonous and so are the leaves, but if the root be properly dried it makes a very nutritious food, and as such it is used by the people of Portland Island on the Coast of Devonshire. They also grind it into a flour, when it is sold under the name of Portland Sago. Children call the plant Lords and Ladies.

BURNET.

COMMON BURNET.

POTERIUM.

Poterium Sanguisorba.

Plate 14-Fig. 8.

A very beautiful and common plant, growing upright, with one or more branched, leafy stems. Flowers purplish, in heads, with fine red, drooping stamens, thirty or forty in number. Calyx four-cleft. Corolla none. Pointals two, only found in the upper flowers. Seed-vessels two, each one-seeded. The leaves taste and smell like Cucumber, and are sometimes eaten in Spring salad; they clothe the stem and grow around in a tuft from the root, are of an elegant, pinnated form, composed of many pairs of oval, serrated leaflets, the various pairs diminishing in size as they are farther from the point. Flowers usually in June, but as it is constantly eaten off by the sheep it throws out flowering stems at almost every season.

CLASS 22.-DIOECIA.

(Flowers having stamens, and those having pointals upon different plants.)

A small class, but rather an important one, as among foreign plants many valuable ones here have place. Our Islands can boast of about seventy species of the Willow, some of the Poplars, the Crowberry, the Butcher's-broom, the Misseltoe, the Sallow-thorn, the Sweet Gale, which is often called English Myrtle, the Hop, the Rose-root, the Frog-bit, the Juniper, and that emblem of sorrow, the Yew Tree.

HOP. HUMULUS.

COMMON HOP. Humulus lupulus.
Plate 14-Fig. 9.

Belongs to the fifth order, Pentandria, there being five stamens. This is a rough climbing plant, very common in rich ground, covering the hedges in the Summer with its flowers, and in the Autumn with its curious, scaly clusters of seed. There are here, as there must be in all of this class, two plants, one producing flowers with stamens only, the other flowers with pointals only, and as these last alone produce seed, they are called fertile flowers, and the other barren flowers. The two sorts are in this instance very different in appearance-the barren flowers are in large, loose bunches, something like the blossoms of the Lilac, each flower with a five-leaved calyx. The fertile flowers are in short, nearly round heads or catkins, formed of hollow scales, folded over each other-each scale is a flower, covering two styles, and producing one round seed. The roots are very long and creeping. The stem rough, very long, and twisting round any support near it. Leaves stalked, rough, three or five-lobed, and serrated. Flowers appearing in July, and seeds ripe a month or six weeks afterwards. The fertile plant is very much grown in many parts of England for the sake of its heads of seeds, which are the material so valuable to the brewer, their bitter principle preserving beer from becoming sour. All the young shoots and leaves were formerly brought to market, and eaten as a Spring vegetable. They are said to be very nice, and much like asparagus in flavor.

MERCURY.

DOG'S MERCURY.

MERCURIALIS.

Mercurialis perennis.

Plate 14-Fig. 10.

Abundant on rubbish heaps, and in gardens, growing perhaps a foot high. Stem not branched. Leaves mostly on the upper part of it, rough, ovate, stalked, serrated. Flowers green, in short, loose spikes, in a three-cleft calyx. The barren flowers have from nine to twelve stamens. The fertile flowers two-styles. Capsule two-celled, with the cells oneseeded. The whole plant in drying becomes of a bright blue color.

O. S. Annual Mercury, found about London, but not common.

CLASS 23.-POLYGAMIA,

(Stamens and pointals sometimes in separate flowers, at other times together.)

This character is only found in one genus of British plants, called

ORACHE. ATRIPLEX.

HALBERT-LEAVED ORACHE. Atriplex patula.
Plate 14-Fig. 11.

A straggling weed, with halbert-shaped, smooth, toothed leaves, and very small, greenish flowers, in little bunches, scattered over the numerous, long bunches. It may be found in flower all the latter part of the Summer, everywhere on waste ground.

NARROW-LEAVED ORACHE. Atriplex angustifolia.

Plate 14-Fig. 12.

This, which is quite as common as the last, does not differ from it in any respect, but in having narrower leaves. When either of these grow on the sea shore their leaves become thicker and downy.

9. S. Shrubby Orache, or Sea Purslane-Frosted Sea Orache-SpearLeaved Orache-Grass-Leaved Sea Orache-and Stalked Sea Orache

CLASS 24.-CRYPTOGAMIA.

(Stamens and pointals none.)

All those plants which never bear flowers, (and this is a very great number,) are called Cryptogamic. They are totally different in their structure from all the flowering plants, and in the description of them various terms are used, that are not necessary elsewhere. Their stems are without any thing like wood. The vessels that supply the sap are very imperfect, and in most of them there are no vessels at all, but the whole plant is a collection of cells or little bags. The seed vessels are called thecæ, and the seeds spores-they differ from seeds in being able to grow from any part of their surface, and not from one particular point alone. They are divided into several orders, named from the nature of the plants themselves, as Ferns, Mosses, Sea Weeds, Lichens, and Fungi. (For an account of some of them see the Appendix.) The first order, the Ferns, is too much sought after to be passed so hastily, but deserve to be included in our general design.

THE FERNS. FILICES.

Are among the most graceful and elegant plants; their leaves (fronds) are in some cases entire, in others most beautifully divided, and all of them coiled up before opening in a very curious and singular manner, the effect of which is often increased by the main stem being covered thickly with hairs or scales. The seed cases or thecæ are borne in differentshaped clusters, mostly on the under side of the frond, sometimes with, and sometimes without, a cover over them. These thecæ are worthy of the most careful inspection-by the naked eye their wonderful form and structure is not seen, but under a miscroscope they will be found to consist of a round or oval bag, with a very elegant, jointed band round it. As the seed ripens the band becomes elastic, and at last flies out, and splitting the thecæ to pieces at the same time, with great force; the seeds are jerked by the sudden motion to the distance of many inches.