I-IEXANDRIA. 

 CLASS VI. 



SIX STAMINA. 



This Class has six Orders, 



ORDER I. 



BARBERRY. This shrub is common in hedges, monoos 



flowering in June, and bearing bright, red, pendulous ' 



berries in autumn. w Pistil " 



This plant is highly interesting from the peculiar 

 property of the stamina of its blossoms ; they exhibit 

 one of the most remarkable instances of irritability 

 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 apparent use of this property 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 no sooner are we 

 satisfied with this solution, than we find another fact 

 that destroys our theory, for in the Cistus Helian- 

 themum, the stamina in their natural position closely 



