10 PAPILIONACEOUS FLOWERS. 



CHAPTER III. 



OF PAPILIONACEOUS FLOWERS. 



From a fancied resemblance to the butterfly, these 

 plants derive the present name. The same tribe are 

 also distinguished with some botanists by the name of 

 Leguminosje, from the legume being their uniform 

 fruit or seed-vessel. 



The Pea may serve as a type of this very natural 

 and curious family of plants. 



The grand division of flowers is into regular and 

 irregular. The regular, present a symmetry and 

 equality in all their parts, each portion forming the 

 segment of a circle, as in the Rose, Tulip, and Pink ; 

 in which we perceive no distinction of the flower into 

 an upper and an under part, no difference betwixt 

 right and left; such is the case with the two tribes we 

 have already examined. 



But you will perceive, at first sight, that the flower 

 of the Pea is irregular ; and that it is readily distin- 

 guishable into an upper and an under part. In dis- 

 tinguishing these parts of an irregular flower into up- 

 per and under, the natural position of the flower on 

 its stem is always presupposed. 



In examining the flower of the Pea you will first 

 observe a one-leafed, or, technically speaking, a mo- 

 nophyllous calyx ; that is, one of an entire piece, end- 

 ing in five distinct leafy points, in two sets, the two 

 wider it the top, and the three narrower at the bottom. 

 This calyx, as well as its peduncle or supporting 

 stalk, also bends downwards, as is, indeed, commonly 

 the case with most flowers at particular times and 

 seasons, for in rainy weather, and at the approach of 

 night, the flowers close their petals, and droop from 



