CLASS D1ADELPH1A. 147 



the capsules 15, truncate, hairy, and each opening 

 with 2 beaks or points. The seeds of this plant have 

 been employed as a substitute for Coffee, which they 

 resemble considerably both in texture and taste. 

 In Virginia and the southern states there is a Dioecious 

 species (S. dioica), which, with another of very tall 

 growth, formed once the genus Naptea. These have 

 abundance of small white flowers, and palmately 

 lobed leaves ; in Napcea smooth ; in $. dioica scabrous. 

 In both, the peduncles produce many flowers in a 

 kind of corymb, and 10 capsules in a calyx. This 

 genus is very numerous in species, many of them 

 being found in South America and India. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



OF THE CLASS DIADELPHIA. 



This class, like the preceding, includes, principally, 

 plants of a single very natural order, with which you 

 have already been made acquainted, as the Papilio- 

 naceje, or more properly LeguminoSjE, the character 

 of the fruit, the legume, being more uniform in this 

 tribe, than the Papilionaceous, or Pea-blossomed 

 flower. Its ostensible character, as the name of two 

 brotherhoods would imply, is to have flowers, of what- 

 ever kind, with the stamens disposed in 2 bodies of 

 united filaments. It will be found, however, that 

 there are several exceptions to this rule in examining 

 the plants referred to it, particularly in the Legumi- 

 nos;e. But here, justly enough, no doubt, all affinity 

 pleads for their detention in the same arrangement, 

 whatever it may be, which includes the rest of the 

 same natural family ; though this rule is violated against 

 our Wild Indigo, and many other Leguminos.e of 



