150 THE BEBBEK^ FAMILY. 



Though a troublesome and persevering weed, fumitory is an indication of good 

 and productive land, hastening, like the poppies, to occupy newly-tumed-over 

 soU. It flourishes most in autumn, improving in its light and airy beauty every 

 day after the corn is cut, and is never so chai-ming as when its rosy clusters and 

 fragile stems and foliage are wet with the dews of an October morning. 



The yellow fumitory {Coryddlis lutea, E. B. ix. 588), a neat, bushy little plant, 

 is common upon rockeries ; the Dielytra formdsa, a plant growing in dense tufts, 

 with glaucous foliage, and clusters of pendulous pink flowers on stems a foot 

 high, produced continuously from May to winter, is found in almost every sub- 

 urban garden, bearing the smoke complacently, and content to live in any kind 

 of soil ; and the Dielytra spectdbilis in almost every suburban green-house. This 

 lovely plant is immediately known by its arching sprays of rose-tinted flowers, 

 hanging from the stalk hke bells, and as flat as if they had been pressed in a 

 book. Coryddlis bullosa, with dull purple flowers in March and April, and the 

 climbing Coryddlis scdndens, are also common. 



XXVII.— THE BERBERY FAMILY. BerheridecB. 



If we take only the shrubby species of this curious family, none are 

 more easily described. They are the only shrubby Exogens with the 

 parts of the flower in sixes. Individually the flowers are the size of a 

 small pea, globular when closed, cup-shaped when open, of a lively 

 yellow colour, and honey- scented. Sometimes they grow singly, on 

 long peduncles ; more frequently in panicles or racemes. The stamens 

 are remarkable for their excitability. Reclining each in the concavity 

 of a petal, if touched with a needle they spring up, like those of the 

 Kalmia, and bring the anthers into close company with the stigma. 

 After a time, they slowly return to their first position. The stems are 

 generally beset with sharp thorns ; or if thornless, then the leaves, 

 which are either simple or pinnate, have prickly edges. When ripe, 

 the solitary ovary becomes a scarlet or purple berry. The species are 

 diffused through the temperate countries of the northern hemisphere, 

 a few more occurring in those of the southern. 



The other section comprises herbaceous plants of altogether different 

 aspect, but, with a single exception, scarcely ever seen in a growing 

 state. They would be better regarded as a distinct family, and called 

 Nandrnem. 



One of each division is indigenous to our island, but the true ber- 

 bery alone to the neighbourhood of Manchester. This, the Berberia 



