CLASS VI. 



SIX STAMINA. 



This Class has six Orders. 

 BARBERRY.. This shrub is common in hedges, order i. 



, . . , ,i OncPistilliun. 



flowering in Jane, and bearing bright, red, pendulous 

 berries in Autumn. 



This plant is highly interesting from the peculiar 

 property of the stamina of its blossoms 5 they exhibit, 

 perhaps, the most remarkable instance of irritability 

 that is known in vegetable life. If the filaments, when 

 lying under the petals of the flower, are touched at 

 the base in the slightest degree, they immediately 

 spring, and embrace the pistillum : a fact extremely 

 curious, and the obvious solution of its use is, that 

 when insects go in search of honey, secreted in glands 

 at the base of each petal, this irritability is excited to 

 scatter the pollen upon the stigma, that the seed might 

 be properly fertilized : but so imperfect is our know- 

 ledge of the agency of Nature, that no sooner are 

 we satisfied with this rational solution, but we find 

 another fact that destroys our theory, for in the Cistus 

 Helianthemum, the stamina in their natural position 

 closely surround the pistillum ; but when touched they 

 all recede from it. Here the naturalist is puzzled to 

 account for the use of this property ; but the obvious 

 conclusion is, without giving ourselves much trouble, 

 that we know nothing of ultimate causes: 



