The Jussieuean^ or Natural^ System of Plants, 143 



Order XI. MJMARIA'CEiE. 

 Tender herbs, with finely cut leaves and annuaF stems, 

 abounding in a watery juice ; without any appearance of milki- 

 ness. They are reckoned slightly diaphoretic and aperient, 

 but their medical properties are trifling. Formerly they were 

 combined with Papaveraceae, from which they are now uni- 

 versally distinguished. The greater part of them are natives 

 of hedges or thickets in the cooler parts of the northern hemi- 

 sphere ; two are natives of the Cape of Good Hope. Many of 

 the species are beautiful ornaments of the flower-garden. 



Corydalis Dec. Diclytra Bore. Sarcocapnos Dec. 



Cysticapnos Boer. Adlumia Rafi. i^'umaria Tou. 



Order XII. CRUCFFER^. 

 The importance of this order to mankind, and the singular 

 nature of its botanical characters, render it expedient to speak 

 very fully upon it; in which the remarks of the learned M. 

 Decandolle, who has paid Cruciferae particular attention, will 

 be chiefly followed. The order consists wholly of annual or 

 perennial, often biennial, herbs, occasionally assuming a suf- 

 frutescent habit ; then, however, never exceeding the height of 

 three feet. The roots are either thick and perennial, or an- 

 nual or biennial and slender, almost always perpendicular and 

 undivided. The young roots are tipped with a little sheath, 

 called the coleorhiza {koleos, a sheath, rhiza, a root), which is 

 produced by the extended ruptured coat of the epidermis, 

 when the rootlet first appears. This is a curious character, 

 and deserves attention. The stems are round or somewhat 

 angular, branched, and often, even iu' the annual species, in- 

 durated at the base. The branches proceed from the axillae 

 of the leaves, but the uppermost ones are abortive in most 

 cases. The racemes are always opposite to the leaves ; some- 

 times the terminal branch is abortive when the raceme 

 appears to be terminal; but this is merely owing to that cir- 

 cumstance. The leaves are simple, generally radical or alter- 

 nate, rarely opposite. The flowers are either white, yellow, 

 or purple, or, in a few Cape species, bright blue. The fruit is 

 called either a siliqua or silicula ; the former being a linear pod 

 containing many seeds, the latter a roundish pod containing 

 one or very few seeds, whence this order, which is the same 

 as the Linnean class Tetradynamia, is divided by Linnaeus into 

 two parts, called Siliquosae and Siliculosae. In the seed, the 

 radicle and cotyledons are applied to each other in different 

 ways, from which the suborders of M. Decandolle derive their 

 characters. When the edge of the cotyledons is pressed close 

 to the radicula, so that a cross section would be thus o =, the 



