CLASS TETRANDR1A. 63 



calyx of 4 leaves, which persists to the ripening ol* 

 the fruit, and even continues, after the period of in- 

 florescence, still to increase with the enlarging spadix. 

 There are no petals, and each pyramidal style is 

 succeeded at its hase by a single seed, large as a pea, 

 not forming a berry, as in the Arum triphyllum, or 

 Indian Turnip, but immersed in the spongy mass of 

 the common receptacle. 



To the second order, or Digynia, of this class, 

 belongs the curious, common shrub, called Witch- 

 hazel in this country, from its resemblance to the 

 Hazel, the Hamamelis, of Botanists. Its time of 

 flowering, October to November, when almost every 

 flower else, but the lingering Asters, are faded and 

 gone, is, for a shrub, sufficiently singular ; when this 

 takes place, the leaves of the plant are daily falling, 

 and on a few but naked branches are its pale yellow, 

 fringe-like, clustered blossoms developed. The flow- 

 ers grow commonly by threes, with a little involu- 

 crum of three bractes at their base ; the calyx is 

 4-cleft ; the petals, at first rolled up like a piece of 

 tape, are unusually long and narrow ; to these, in the 

 course of the following season, succeed a kind of 

 leathery, 2-horned, 2-celled nuts, at length, cleft 

 at the top, with one elastically coated black seed in 

 each cell. 



The Pond-weeds (Potamogeton) belong to the 

 fourth order, Tetragynia, as well as the fourth 

 class, and, indeed, have every thing by fours ; a 4- 

 leaved calyx ; no corolla ; to each flower succeeds 

 4 one-seeded nuts. These plants have commonly 

 floating or immersed leaves of an olivaceous green, 

 and thin texture ; when immersed, the flowers them- 

 selves are of the same dingy green and inconspicuous 

 hue as the leaves. Nearly allied to this genus is 

 the Ruppia maritima, found on almost every sea-coast 



