AFRICAN MARVriOLD. ATS 



Thunbcrg, who visited Japan about tlic year 

 1775, for the purpose of making discoveries in 

 botany, tells us that these plants are cultivated 

 by those jelaous and cautious islanders ; and 

 Loureiro notices that the Tagetes is also culti- 

 vated in China, Cochin-China, and many parts 

 of India ; but he remarks that it is not indi- 

 genous in those countries. Hernandez mentions 

 it as a native of Mexico, in his history of that 

 country, and the plants of the Tagetes, which 

 flowered in the Eltham garden as long back as 

 1727, were raised from seeds sent direct from 

 Mexico. 



The students of botany will find these plants 

 placed in the second order of the nineteenth class 

 of Linnaeus 's sexual system, on account of the 

 flowrets of the disk being bisexual, and those 

 of the radius containing only female organs, 

 whereas those of the Marygold, Calendula, stand 

 in the fourth order of the same class, the flow- 

 rets of the disk in the latter containing only an- 

 thers, and those of the margin only stigmas. The 

 Mexican flower also differs from the European 

 Marygold in not closing its petals at night, a 

 gift of nature so frequently noticed by our poets : 



" The Mary-budde that shutteth with the lig^ht." 



ClIATTERTON. 



