74 THE STORY’ OF PLANT -LEFe 
The old shoe-makers had their dressers made of 
the wood. The wood is soft, light and smooth, close 
grained and not attacked by the beetle. For carvings 
it is an excellent material, and Gibbon worked largely 
with it, being introduced by Evelyn to Charles II. 
Sugar is derived from the sap. It is excellent wood 
for panel work. Matting and ropes are made from 
the bast. Good honey is yielded by bees that feed 
on it. 
THE GERANIUM GROUP. 
The name Geranium, the type of the order Geran- 
iaceze, and which is derived from the Greek geranos, 
a crane, is a key at once to one of the main charac- 
teristics of this order, namely, the long crane’s bill- 
like torus which projects from the carpels clustered 
around it, so that another name is Crane’s Bill. 
The order includes Geranium and Stork’s Bill 
amongst British plants, the latter distinguished from 
the former by having five in place of ten stamens, and 
in having the awn bearded inside. 
It includes some of the most beautiful plants; the 
Pelargonia, or so-called geraniums of the garden, of 
which there are so many varieties, noted for the 
brilliancy of their bloom and the fragrance of their 
foliage, one form I have in mind smelling strongly of 
nutmeg when the leaves are rubbed between the 
fingers. It is amongst the geraniums, too, that one 
finds another good distinction, well developed, that is, 
the membranous stipules at the swollen joints of the 
