1 18 CLASS POLYANDRIA. 



The most curious plant of this class is undoubtedly 

 the peculiar North American genus Sarracenia, term- 

 ed in England the Side-saddle flower, or rather leaf, 

 as the resemblance only exists there, to the old- 

 fashioned side-saddle. It has no distinct affinity with 

 any other genus yet discovered, though somewhat 

 allied to Niiphar, the yellow Pond-lily, and will form, 

 no doubt, the type of a distinct natural order, as well 

 as genus. The »S. purpurea, or most common species, 

 is found only in wet, mossy bogs, and is an evergreen 

 perennial, sending up for leaves, clusters of peculiar 

 processes, which have heen termed ascidia, from the 

 Greek auxbg, a bottle. They are hollow, tubular ap- 

 pendages, enlarging above, where they remain open, 

 or but slightly sheltered by a broad valve-like process, 

 undulated, or arched over this extremity of the tube ; 

 above, and lengthwise, this tube sends off a leafy ridge. 

 In the yellow flowered species, so common in Virginia 

 and the southern states, these ascidia are very long, 

 and not unaptly resemble trumpets, the name by which 

 the plant is there generally known. From the bosom 

 of these curious leaves, commonly filled with water 

 and dead insects, arise, in June, a number of scapes 

 producing yellow or red flowers, consisting of a double 

 persisting calyx, the external one smaller, and 3-leav- 

 ed ; the inner 5 leaved. The petals 5 deciduous, 

 spreading out from beneath the very large, persistent, 

 peltate stigma, wiiich overshadows the numerous sta- 

 mens. The anther is adnate to its filament. The 

 capsule is roundish and scabrous, 5-celled, and 5- 

 valved, many seeded. The seeds are also somewhat 

 scabrous and compressed. 



The Purslain (Portidacca), the type of the order 

 Portulage;e, belongs also, as well as all the preced- 

 ing genera, to the first order of our class. This suc- 

 culent annual weed, with wedge-shaped leaves, is but 



