172 



THE PEA FAMILY. 



are so exceedingly rare that in practical English Botany they are of no 

 account. The presence of a legume, or pod formed on the type of the 

 common green-pea (though sometimes only one-seeded, or twisted, or 

 jointed), is sufficient for the determination of any species ever likely 

 to he seen alive. Those most unpea-like flowers of all, the Australian 

 Acacias and the Cassias, acknowledge themselves leguminous when 

 the time comes to ripen their fruit. The papilionaceous or butterfly- 

 shaped flower is peculiar to the family, and is mimicked only by the 

 Poly gala (p. 156). 



FiK. 125. 



Reduced to a technical form, the description of the family will be as 

 foUows :— Stem herbaceous, shrubby, or arborescent ; sometimes 

 twining. Leaves alternate, stipuled, and compound in every variety, 

 as in Figs. 121, 122, 123, 124, and 125, with very many others; 

 sometimes reduced to a single leaflet, or even to a thorn, and when 

 the stem is slender, often terminating in tendrils. (Fig. 119.) Flowers, 

 in the great mass of the family, irregular, pcntamerous, and butterfly- 

 shaped, with ten stamens, that often adhere by their filament* ; in the 

 remainder rosaceous, with numerous independent stamens, and some- 

 times unisexual. Ovary in all cases single, with a single style and 



