218 THE LILAC FAMILY. 



flowers, is naturalized in England, and inserted in all general Floras. Growing 

 readily when planted in iiouds, it has several times become lialf-^ild neai" Man- 

 chester, but now seems to be neai-ly gone again. The old locality in Greenheys 

 has been desti'oyed for several years ; and though plentiful some little time ago 

 in the reservoir of the Rhodes Print-works, near Middleton, having become too 

 mucli oT a weed, i. e., " a flower out of place," it has there also been dragged out, 

 and well-nigh exterminated. It is really melancholy to think that many of our 

 loveliest wild-flowors should in some way or other be pernicious and hated weeds. 



The garden reijresentatives comprise the briUiaat gentianella or Gentiana 

 acauUs, (E. B. xxiii. 1594.) its incomparable deep-blue vases, streaked in the 

 inside with green, and Ufted scai'cely above the level of the ground, contrasting 

 superbly with the crimson anemones and white narcissus of April and May ; and 

 several large but less shewj' species that bloom in summer and autumn, viz., 

 the yellow Gentiana lutea, and the blue or purple cruciata, septemjida, and 

 asclepiadea. The G. verna is also found in curious collections. Green-houses 

 present diflerent species of Chirorda and Erythnea, with flowers of the loveliest 

 and purest pink, their large yellow anthers twisted into spiral scroUs after the 

 discharge of the pollen. The Villarsia is grown in the ornamental water at the 

 ^tanic Gai'dens. 



LXIL— THE LILAC FAMILY. OledcetB. 



Trees and shrubs, the branches usually dichotomous, and ending 

 abruptly in a large and conspicuous bud. Leaves opposite, either 

 simple, undivided, and more or less oval, lanceolate, and pointed ; or 

 pinnate, with many pairs of leaflets. Inflorescence in terminal or 

 axillary racemes or panicles, the branches and pedicels opposite. 

 Flowers tetramerous, small, but from their abundance gay, and often 

 highly scented. Stamens two, usually concealed in the corolla, the 

 lower part of which is tubular, and on the inner surface of which 

 they grow. Ovary single ; fruit various, usually either a berry or a 

 capsule. In the ash-tree the perianth is undeveloped, a circumstance 

 which at the first glance makes it seem quite out of place in a family 

 which in every other instance is possessed of one. Under an artificial 

 system of classification, so wide a difference would remove it elsewhere, 

 and thus to a distance from its real congeners ; but in the Natural 

 System all si7i</le characters are subordinate to the mass of characters, 

 and here we see the great excellence and superiority of this system. 

 The ash-tree agrees with the lilac, the olive, the privet, and every 

 other member of the family, in all particulars but perianth, and 



