90 CLASS HEXANDRIA. 



several thousands of elegant but not showy, greenish 

 yellow flowers, from which slowly drops a shower of 

 honey. With the flowering the energies of the plant 

 become exhausted, and it then perishes, however 

 long it may have previously existed, but at the same 

 time it sends up from the root numerous offsets for 

 the purpose of viviparous propagation. 



The Tradescantia, or Spider-wort, of the natural 

 family Commelineje, is a remarkable grass-like look- 

 ing plant, with fugaceous delicate flowers, coming out 

 in long succession so as to form an umbel, from a ter- 

 minal sheathing leaf. In the common Virginian spe- 

 cies (T. virginica), they are of a rich blue, and occa- 

 sionally white. In this plant there is a green 3-leaved 

 calyx, but consequently only 3 petals. The filaments 

 are remarkably downy, and the hairs of which it con- 

 sists, when seen through a lens, are jointed like a neck- 

 lace. The capsule is superior, 3-celled, and many- 

 seeded. 



To a very different grand division of the vegetable 

 kingdom, the Dicotyledones, belongs the genus 

 B&rberis of Hexandria, the type of a peculiar natural 

 order, the Berberideje. These are shrubs, com- 

 monly armed with trifid thorns, having yellow wood, 

 alternate acid leaves, edged with bristles : axillary 

 racemes or corymbs of yellow flowers, succeeded by 

 acid, oblong, 1 -celled, 2 to 4-seeded berries. The 

 calyx is yellow like the corolla, of 6 leaves. The 

 petals are also 6, with two glutinous glands situated 

 on each claw. There is no style, and an umbilicate 

 stigma. The stamens of the Barberry are remarka- 

 ble for their irritability ; they recline upon the petals, 

 but on touching the base of the filaments by a pin or 

 straw they instantly start forward to the stigma, and 

 this experiment may be repeated upon the same 

 flower. 



