142 TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
longer pursue our method of working up from the lower 
to the higher forms. It is as though we had come to the 
top form of a school, where all were on the whole of 
equal merit, but each has his special subject, classics, 
science, or mathematics. At the same time, we must 
have some rule of arrangement, if we would ever come to 
a definite knowledge, and the chief principle followed, 
within the actual borders of this group, is the form of 
the flower, and especially of those subordinate floral 
envelopes, which were called, as you will remember, the 
calyx, made up of sepals, and the corolla, of petals. 
Botanists, then, have made three divisions, first, those 
flowers which have either got rid of one of the envelopes, 
or have never developed more than one. These are called 
plants with a single garment, or Monochlamydew, and we 
shall have to deal with them in this chapter. Then 
come the flowers in which petals are “soldered” together 
at the base into a tube (Gamopetale), and these will 
be described in Chapters XV. and XVI. Last comes the 
group in which the petals of each flower’s corolla are 
detached, these (Polypetale) occupy Chapters X VII-XX. 
By-the-by, do not worry about trying. to remember the 
technical names of these groups. They are not at all 
important, and it is quite enough if you can remember 
the simple principles upon which we are working. 
In the first of these three groups, which only develop 
one ring of floral leaves around stamens and pistils, are to 
be found most of the trees in our woods and forests, but 
before we glance at them, we may examine a much 
humbler representative, with which everyone is painfully 
familiar, the common Stinging Nettle. Of this there are 
three kinds in England, all much alike in appearance, and 
needing no description, for they are almost the earliest 
