dO NEILGHERRY PLANTS. 
table relationships, that must have been required to trace the affinities by which they are 
united. Who, for example, except a most profound and philosophical investigator of vege- 
table structure could have traced any relationship between a rose and a strawberry, or be- 
tween a raspberry and a peach, or not less extraordinary, between an apple and a cherry, 
or many other still more, apparently, irreconcileable contrasts that might be adduced. 
Incongruous as such associations may appear they have all been most distinctly made 
out and are now considered in Botany as well established factsas that two and two make 
four. To explain how these relationships are proved isnot an easy matter since to trace 
them requires, at starting, a considerable knowledge of structure in its most primary forms. 
Attention however to the following easily observed points will tend to show that the demon- 
stration is quite possible. 
The general character of the whole order is to have 5 sepals, two pairs and an odd one, 
the odd one being always posterior or next the axis while the odd petal stands opposite it on 
the other side of the flower. ‘The stamens and petals inall are perigynous that is inserted on 
the disk of tlie calyx at some distance from the ovary (see all the accompanying figures) and 
with one exception, the seed in all are without albumen, to these may be added that the sta- 
mens generally exceed twelve and are often very numerous and the ovules, except in Pomez, 
pendulous. In addition to these points of agreement the rose and strawberry agree in hav- 
ing numerous one seeded carpels with the seed suspended from’ the apex of the cell, and in 
their style rising from the side not the apex of the carpel. 
But the rose differs in having its carpels inferior enclosed within the tube of the calyx, 
or rather, it may be called, a hollow receptacle formed of the dilated apex of the peduncle : 
while the Strawberry has its carpels superior attached to a spongy receptacle, which swells 
and becomes sweet aud succulent as the fruit attains maturity, in depressions of the surface 
of which its little nuts nestle. Thus the fruitification is the same in both, all except the re- 
ceptacle, which is a hollow concave cell in the one, a projecting convex spongy body in the 
other. This one difference great as it is, is not considered of sufficient importance to con- 
stitute them distinct orders. Potentilla only differs from the strawberry in the structure of 
its receptacle: in Potentilla it is elevated but dry and at maturity does not lile the straw- 
berry come away with the seed or nuts but remains attached to the ealyx. The Raspberry 
and Bramble differs from both, in the fruit the receptacle of which is dry and elevated as in 
the Potentillas, but the carpels, in place of being little dry nuts, as in them, are miniature 
drupes or stone front, thatis, each seed or stone is enclosed ina succulent pulpy covering the 
same as the stone ofacherry or plum. Here then is the first decided gradation between the 
Potentillee and Amygdalee tribes, the difference between them being that in Raspberries &c. 
there are a congeries of miniature drupes spread over a superior receptacle and a persistent 
calyx ; while in Cherries &e. there is only one carpel, in the middle of the flower, and the 
calyx is deciduous. These differences are esteemed of less value than the others by which the 
two tribesare connected, hence the Amygdalee ave considered merely a suborder of the family 
of Rosacee, the more so, as in this tribe we find non-succulent fruit the same as in the other, 
as for example Pygeum (No. 59) which has neither a stone nor pulpy covering for its seed, 
but is yet considered a truly amygdaleous tree, 
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