EECREATIVE SCIENCE. 



.159 



$ee one of these leguminous plants again 

 ■without knowing its social status in the 

 botanical world, and recognizing it as a 

 member of a most important family — quite 

 one of the most so in Flora's kingdom. 

 Most important to man, seeing that from it 

 he draws such a vast number of articles 

 which are almost necessaries to his comfort- 

 able existence. Lastly, look at the leaves of 

 our leguminous friends (Fig. 34); but we 

 shall speak of them 

 in a future lesson. 

 Suffice it to point 

 out here that they 

 are what botanists 

 call compound — 

 that they are cha- 

 racteristic as such, 

 especially with the 

 superaddition, to 

 many, of the ten- 

 drils (Fig. 34). 

 With distinct pe- 

 tals, with petals and 

 stamens attached to 

 the calyx, the rose 

 tribes are grouped 

 with our pod-bear- 

 ing friends the 

 Leguminosse ; but 

 from them, in other 

 Fig. 34.— Compound Leaf of respects, they differ 

 Vetch, a, tendrils. widely. 



Firstly, the blossoms are regular ; you can 

 cut a strawberry, a wild-rose, or an apple 

 blossom through the centre, in any direction, 

 into two equal halves. Calyx, corolla, sta- 

 mens, pistil, varying in divisions, number, 

 etc., are yet all regular. You will have no 

 difficulty with the first three sets of organs 

 in any we have made you gather ; but when 

 you come to put the pistil, or rather pistils, 

 of the strawberry and bramble, beside those 

 of the apple or wild-rose, you are probably 

 quite thrown out. The strawberry and the 

 bramble (Fig. 29a) bear their pistils relatively 



to the other parts of the blossom, in accord- 

 ance with your previous experience of plant 

 arrangements ; but the rose and the apple 

 seem to put their calyx and other parts right 

 on the top of the pistil, or at least of the 

 seed-vessel. We are too young in our 

 lessons to consider this subject here, and 

 when we come to opefl our fruit-basket it 

 will be fully gone into ; suffice it that the 

 difference is more apparent then real. 



Fig. 35. — Compound Leaf of Eose. 



however, sufficient difference to cause divi- 

 sions in the great class of the Rosaceous 

 plants ; some claiming to be the true stock, 

 or Erosese, whilst others, including our friends 

 the apples and pears, rank as the Pome tribe, 

 and a third set takes their places with the 

 cherries and plums. Nevertheless, divided 

 or not, the Eosacese are a most excellent 

 family, and are not one whit behind the pod- 

 bearers in the amount of good things they 

 prepare for us. We must not forget that 

 many of them, such as the rose (Fig. 35), 

 have compound leaves. Neither must we 

 forget that with all the good things they give 

 us, they are also great preparers of prussic 

 acid, and that bitter almonds, peach kernels* 



