344 HYPOPETALEZR. 
some placing it among monocotyledonous plants, while others 
have referred it to the dicotyledonous division. The Nym- 
pheacez are aquatic plants, with numerous sepals and petals 
passing insensibly into each other, many stamens, ovary 
many-celled and many-seeded, and an indehiscent pericarp. 
White Water Lily (Nymphea alba), and Yellow Water 
Lily (Nuphar lutea) are examples. They are somewhat as- 
tringent, and were formerly deemed anodyne. 
ORDER XCV. 
CRUCIFER. 
Brassicacee, Lindley. 
Cuaracters.—Herbs, with alternate leaves and small 
white, yellow, or whitish-purple flowers; calyx of 4 sepals, 
caducous ; corolla of 4 petals, deeply clawed, alternate with 
the sepals, and arranged in a cruciform manner ; stamens 6, 
of which two are shorter, and solitary, the other 4 in pairs ; 
glands ona kind of disk between the petals and ovary ; ovary 
generally of 2 cells, with a partition (considered spurious) 
formed by the union of 2 elongated parietal placenta, and 
with many ovules; style very short; stigma simple or 2-lob- 
ed; pericarp a siliqua or a silicula, dehiscing by 2 valves 
separating from the dissepiment (seldom 1-celled and inde- 
hiscent); seeds pendulous, attached to the placentw in 4 
rows, 2 rows on each side of the dissepiment, and without 
albumen. 
_ Exampres.— Wallflower (Cheiranthus Cheiri), Cabbage 
a ‘(Brassica oleracea). 
This is one of the most natural families of plants, both in 
‘structure and properties : it is generally divided into two 
der. Suave Dien teak ae ; 
= _ssoeerade see Figs. riaiacco > Page 129, 2 
