90 THE ST. JOHN's-WOKT FAMILY. 



the bachelor's-buttons, or Ranunculus aconitifolius, with fan-lobed, angular leaves, 

 and abundance of small white double flowers, in spreading corj^mbs. As the 

 days lengthen, the superb pseonies begin to blow, — the finest examples of the 

 Kanunculacea; ; and after these, the larkspurs, irregular-flowered, and mostly 

 deep blue, including the native species, or Delphinium consolida. (E. B. xxvi. 

 1839.) Lastly come the yellow Aconitum Lycoctonum, various kinds of Thalic- 

 trum, and the Clematis, that beautiful natural bower of white and green, which, 

 in the sweet perfume it mingles with the breath of autumn, compensates the 

 general scentlessness of the family. The large purple-flowered species with 

 ternate leaves, is the C. viticella. The C. vit&lba or travellers' joy, (Curtis, ii. 

 257.) indigenous in the southern counties, occurs in gardens in Victoria Park, 

 about Lymm, and at Leigh. There is a semi- wild plant of it in a stone-quarry 

 near Boothstown, called Hampson Delph. 



The poisonous hellebores, with the exception of the " Christmas-rose," or 

 HelUborus niger, are fortunately less ornamental in their flowers, and, in con- 

 sequence, not frequent. The commonest, next to the HelUborus niger, is the 

 HelUborus fcetidus, a low-growing, ill-favoured plant, with large palmate leaves of 

 disagreeable smell, and drooping panicles of globular green flowers, purple at the 

 edges, and opening early in the spring. 



It is in the garden species of this family that we have the best examples of the 

 fruit called the "follicle," that is to say, a dry, upright, one-celled seed-pod, open- 

 ing lengthwise along the inner side. The mai'sh-marigold supphes a very good 

 illustration, but is surpassed by the columbine, the larkspur, and the paeony, 

 which is the largest and finest of all. Here also occur the finest examples of 

 tailed achenia, including, besides the clematis, the pasque-flower or Anemone 

 Pulsatilla. (Curtis, iii. 502.) 



III.— THE ST. JOHN'S- WORT FAMILY. Hypericdcea:. 



Herbaceous or half-shrubby plants, with simple, usually opposite, 

 tindividcd leaves, in outline generally oval or oblong. Flowers yel- 

 low, except in one or two foreign species, which have red blossoms ; 

 sepals and petals five each, two of the former outside the other three, 

 and the petals often with unequal and black-spotted edges ; stamens 

 numerous, often one or two hundred, on long and slender filaments, 

 united at the base into three or five clusters ; ovary single, large, and 

 oval ; styles long, three in the wild Manchester species, five in some 

 of the otliers. The leaves frequently appear full of minute holes when 

 looked at against the light. 



A family of 270 species, widely dispersed over the world, neat nnd 

 often shewy in their flowers, but of no particular value economically. 



Ten grow wild in England ; seven in the neighbourhood of Man- 

 chester. 



