Cll. XXIII.] CLASSES AIMD ORDERS 



586. The genus AMYGDALUS contains the Peach and the Al- 

 mond. The latter is a native of warm countries, and seems to 

 have been known in the remotest times of antiquity. 



ORDER DI-PENTAGYNIA, from two to Jive pistils. 



587. The four orders in the class If jsandria which follow the 

 first, are included under one, called Di-pentagynia, signifying 

 from two to five pistils. We find here the hawthorn, a shrub with 

 deep green foliage, white (lowers, and scarlet berries, and with 

 very large and strong thorns. The genus Pyrus which contains 

 the Apple and Pear, belongs here. The varieties of these 

 fruits are the effect of cultivation, not the produce of different 

 species. By means of grafting, which consists in inserting the 

 sprout of one plant into the body or branches of another, good 

 fruit may be produced upon a tree which before produced a 

 poorer kind. 



ORDER POLYGYNIA, many pistils. 







588. We here find the Rose ; this, in its natural state, contains 

 but five petals ; it is remarkable for its stamens and pistils 

 changing to petals by cultivation. Several species of the Rose 

 are indigenous to North America ; as the small wild rose, the 

 sweet briar, and swamp rose. Red and uhite roses are re- 

 markable in English history as emblems of the houses of York 

 and Lancaster; for when those families contended for the 

 crown, in the reign of Henry the Sixth, the white rose distin- 

 guished the partizans of the house of York, and the red those 

 of Lancaster. The Moss rose, ROSA muscosa, has its name 

 from the moss-like substance with which the flower, stem, and 

 calyx, are covered; it is in fact a collection of glands, contain- 

 ing a resinous and fragrant fluid. Roses are favourite plants in 

 all countries where they are found ; but it is remarkable that 

 none have ever been met with growing wild in the southern 

 hemisphere. Among the ancients, particularly the Egyptians, 

 roses were considered as symbols of silence, for which reason 

 the goddess Isis, and her son Harpocrates, who was the god of 

 silence, were crowned with chaplets of those flowers. The 

 eastern nations, especially the Persian, boast of the beauty and 

 splendour of their roses. 



589. The Blackberry, (Rubus,) has a flower resembling the 



5SG. Of the genus Amygdalusl 



587. What is said of the order Di-pentagynia, and of some of the 

 plants contained in it 1 



588. What is said of the Rose genus 1 

 539. Of the different species of the Rubus 1 



