194 _ TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
Irish, and it has certainly as good a claim as any other 
plant, which is not perhaps saying very much after all. 
The sweet-scented lLime-flower, with the eternal 
“murmur of innumerable bees” around it, stands at the 
‘ head of the third series of our many-petalled flowering 
plants, known botanically as Thalamiflorw. If you 
happen to remember the name, well and good, but if 
you do not it does not matter, for, as I said before, 
this classification of flowering plants is based upon 
differences of detail rather than principle, and perhaps 
before very long some other system may be adopted. 
We shall meet the Lime again in the chapter on forest 
trees, and for the present I only want to call your 
attention to the bract which clings to the flower-stalk, 
and comes twirling away with the seeds when they are 
ripe, leading them away from the overwhelming shade 
of the parent. . 
Equally familiar with the Lime, or even more so, is the 
Mallow. Everyone knows the dusty, roundish leaves, — 
from amongst which spring the spreading rose-coloured 
flowers. The Mallow is no retiring or delicate plant, but 
in every hedgerow, by the roadside, and on waste ground, 
it springs up cheerfully and vigorously, defying dust and 
drought. Almost as early a recollection as the flower is’ 
the seed-vessel, the Mallow “cheese” which most of us 
have eaten, and found it at least harmless, though only 
enjoyable from the pleasant childish sense of bold 
adventure in the essay. They might have had a further 
interest, if one had known then that the cotton plant 
is a close ally of the Mallow, and that the hairs from 
which calico is woven are the beautiful covering of the 
cotton-seed, not so edible as the “cheeses,” but of infinite 
importance, not only to the millions of Lancashire work- 
