BOTANY : ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 41 



W. India I have shown j and as most of the students whom I am 

 thinking of in writing this paper are scattered about the Presidency 

 often in out-of-the-way districts, it is not at all likely that they will 

 be able to supplement their scanty scientific education by attend- 

 ance at lectures or resort to libraries. Now one of the chief reasons 

 wby botanical books are repulsive and botanical classification diffi- 

 cult, is from the chief distinctions of orders and genera bciug taken 

 from the smaller parts of the organs of generation of the plants, 

 and so almost always involviug microscopical details. If plants 

 could be classified by such prominent parts as the petals or tbe 

 leaves, a great part of the difficulty to beginners would be avoided, 

 and a great many barbarous looking words gob rid of. I do nob of 

 course mean that this can be done; but the classification of Liuna3us 

 depending on the number and arrangement of the stamens and 

 pistils, is far easier for beginners than what is called the natural 

 system; but it has, unfortunately I think for people situated as tbose 

 for whom I am writing are, been almost entirely abandoned. 



I propose in this paper to work a little on Rousseau's lines with 

 the view of helping students not far advanced in the identification 

 of the common plants aroud them. I shall in this paper bring 

 together all the orders containing flowers with bilabiate corolla : 

 aud didyuamous stamens, showing where they agree and where 

 they differ, and shill then describe, as shortly and simply as is 

 possible for identification, a certain number of the commonest and 

 most remarkable species found in W. India. I put it this way, 

 because it is clear that plants attract the attention of ordinary 

 observers either by being very common without reference to there 

 being anythiug attractive in them, or by being very conspicuous, 

 though they may not be common. 



The following are the characteristics in very simple language of 

 the whole group of plants of which I am writing. Corolla niono- 

 petalous, i.e., all in one piece, the lower part (and generally the 

 larger part) being a tube, whether broad or narrow, the edge of 

 the flower (at the top of the tube), which vary very much in size, 

 being variously cut, not symmetrically, but more or less into an 

 upper and lower lip.* I should mention that Rousseau made a 



* Take as examples of a very narrow aud a vory broad tube tb.3 corolla of 

 Achimenes aud Gloxinia, respectively; and as examples of a very strongly and a 

 very obscurely two-lipped corolla, that of Salvia aud Lantana, respectively, remem- 

 bering that between these extromes there are any number of variations. 

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