THE TROPHY-WORT FAMILY. 107 



2. Yellow Wood-sorrel — {Oxalis corniculdta.) 



Abundant as a weed in the garden at Broomcroft House, Didsbury ; 



also in the garden, unsown, at Kose Hill, Northen, the residence of 



Absalom Watkin, Esq. ; and in cultivated ground at Rusholme and 



Baguley. Fl. June. 



E. B. xxiv. 1726. 



The cultivated Oxalideae comprise a few from the Cape of Good Hope, closely 

 resembling the English species, but larger and more succulent, and a charming 

 plant called Blophytum, which lifts a rosette of pinnate and sensitive leaves upon 

 the summit of a little column, — a palm, or tree-fern, as it were, in miniature. 

 They are seldom seen out of the green-house. 



XI.— THE TROPHY- WORT FAMILY. Tropwolece. 



Herbaceous plants, with slender and succulent stems, scrambling 

 among stouter ones for svipport. Leaves alternate, simple, lobed or 

 undivided, on long petioles, which are often bent into hooks shaped 

 like the letter S, and used as tendrils. Flowers irregular, on long 

 peduncles, very shewy, red, scarlet, or yellow, sometimes with green 

 superadded. Calyx with a long hollow tail ; petals five ; stamens 

 eight ; carpels three, distinct, forming a three-cornered ovary and 

 fruit, and falling apart when ripe. 



Natives, to the extent of about forty species, of the temperate parts 

 of North and South America ; in properties pungent, acrid, and strong- 

 smelling, as well known in the common garden "Nasturtium," or 

 Tropceolum majiis, the English name being in reality the Latin or 

 botanical one of the water-cress, which the plant is considered to 

 resemble in flavour. The name " Tropseolum " is given to it by 

 reason of the shield-shaped leaves, presented full front, and dark 

 ensanguined flowers, which so aptly image the blood-stained " trophy," 

 helmets, armour, and weapons, of the ancient battle-field. The light 

 and graceful Canary-bird plant, or Tropceolum Canartense, so pretty 

 for a trellis, belongs to the same genus. In green-houses occur 

 T. tricolorum, T. pentaphyllmn, and several others. The extent to 

 which most of the hardy kinds will spread in the course of the sum- 

 mer and autumn is really wonderful, and equally so the resistance of 

 their leaves to wet. Rain has no power to moisten even their surface, 

 rolling off* as fast as it falls, in silvery globules. 



