THE HUE AND THE ELATINE PAMHIES. 155 



These strange little plants are in perfection from the end of June to near the 

 middle of August, when no one interested in the marvels of nature should fail to 

 look for them. It is best to go after a week of dry weather, unless indifferent to 

 the possibility of a shoeful of water. FHes and midges are captured by the viscid 

 drops on the points of the hairs, as birds are caught with bird-hme, and held fast 

 tUl they are dried to death by the sun, appearing to furnish nourishment to the 

 plant in the products of the decomposition of their corpses. See " Manchester 

 Walks and Wild-flowers," chap, x.; also " Life, its Nature," &c., p. 39, Ed. 2. 



XXXII.— THE RUE FAMILY. Rutdcece. 



Shrubs, with the exception of the Fraxinella, and in eveiy case 

 exotic. Leaves opposite or alternate, usually covered with pellucid, 

 resinous dots, and emitting a powerful and aromatic odour. Parts of 

 the flower in fours or fives ; style simple ; stigmas as many as the 

 cells of the ovary, and the fruit invariably capsular. The ordinary 

 representative of the family is the common rue {Riita graveolens), 

 easily distinguished by its blueish-green, doubly-pinnatifid leaves, 

 intensely bitter taste, combined with disagreeable smell, and yellow 

 flowers, with the parts in fours. Next to it in frequency are the 

 favoiirite green-house shrubs called Correa, Boronia, and Diosma, 

 mostly from New Holland and the Cape of Good Hope. The Fraxi- 

 neUa, a plant with leaves like those of the ash-tree, and tall racemes 

 of large, irregular pink flowers, that seem to concentrate the perfumes 

 of all the spice islands, is not rare in superior gardens. The perfume 

 only lasts an hour or two after the stem is broken. 



XXXIII.— THE ELATINE FAMILY. Elatvnacece. 



Extremely minute plants, allied to the Carnation Family, but differ- 

 ing in their capitate stigmas, and ovary of three or more cells. They 

 occur throughout the northern hemisphere, inhabiting marshes, and 

 the borders of lakes and ponds. 



Two species grow wild in England, and one of them, the common 

 elatine, near Manchester, a minute aquatic, with stems in matted, 

 creeping tufts, half-an-inch to two inches long ; the flowers trimerous 

 and rose-coloured. 



