CLASS DIADEU'HIA. 



149 



there are 10 perfect anthers, and a papilionaceous, 5- 

 petaUed corolla. The Petalostemons are perennials, 

 with clustered, and commonly simple, low, herbaceous 

 stems, terminating in cylindric dense heads of white, 

 reddish purple, or pink (lowers, which retain their 

 color in the herbarium in a very extraordinary de- 

 gree, particularly the P. violaceum, which, after years 

 of drying and death, seems still as bright as when the 

 living ornament of its native plains. 



In FTexandria, of this class, you will find the 2 

 genera, Corydalis and Funutria, formerly united, and 

 now making part of a natural order, named, from the 

 better known genus, Fumariace;e. They have both 

 a 2-leaved calyx, and a corolla of 4 petals, with 1 or 

 2 gibbous cavities at its base. In the Fumitory, how- 

 ever, the silicle is nearly round, containing but a single 

 seed, and never spontaneously opening. This is a 

 coiuiuon annual weed in gardens, having a weak and 

 diffuse stem, and compound leaves dividing in a ter- 

 nary manner. 



In Corydalis the silique is 2-valved, compressed, 

 oblong, and many-seeded. Of this genus we have 



or 7 species, with red, white, or yellow flowers, and 

 most of them early flowering and very elegant plants. 



1 will merely quote 2 of the species, which are peren- 

 nial, and commonly in flower betwixt April and May. 

 In both these, inhabitants of our unaltered, rich, shady, 

 and often rocky woods, the 6 filaments present an 

 exception, as we have noticed above, to the character 

 of the class, in their entire separation to the base. 

 The first and best known is the C. cucullaria, ridicu- 

 lously called Dutchman's breeches, from the 2 straight, 

 acute, divaricate spurs, or projecting gibbosities at the 

 base of the corolla. This plant, which grows to- 

 gether in considerable quantities, has a small, scaly, 

 bulbous root ; finely twice decompounded, elegant. 



