GRINDON ON SPRING" FLOWERS. 13 



horticulture and agriculture, are afforded in abundance by the life history 

 of Trees, and we should do well to mark their phenomena more exactly. 



Eibes sangidneum. — While the leaves are expanding, and the]crimson 

 clusters beginning to open, an excellent opportunity is given by this 

 beautiful bush for noting the nature of perules. The greater portion of 

 the perules that surround a given leaf-bud are pink and bract-like — here 

 and there, however, may be found one with a miniature green lamina at 

 the extremity, precisely corresponding to that which is found on the 

 uppermost bracts of the Helleborus fcetldus, and at the extremity of the sepals 

 of the " King Charles " polyanthus. The homology of the vegetative and 

 reproductive organs of plants should be diligently looked after by the 

 young student, since no true idea of them can be obtained except by 

 watching their development, and noting how from one primitive element 

 may be developed, (according to the vital impulse, and to the exigencies 

 of the individual), into perule, leaf, bract, sepal, petal, stamen, or carpel. 



Pentas carnea. — The " interpetiolar stijDules " of the great Natural 

 Order CinclionacecB, form one of its most striking characteristics. The 

 Pentas, in bloom at this season, gives a remarkably fine example of these 

 organs ; they are very large, erect, and deeply laciniated. Many of the 

 flowers, instead of being 5-cleft, are tetramerous, and thus in striking 

 correspondence with the condition found in certain Galiums, and more 

 particularly in the Rubia peregrina, in which the 4-cleft and 5-cleft corollas 

 are often half and half in number. I have never noted 5-cleft corollas 

 in the Asperula, though 4-cleft ones are not uncommon in the CinclionacecB 

 proper. The combination of the two families respectively illustrated in 

 the plants adverted to, and the denomination of the whole as Bubiacece, is 

 no doubt proper as a matter of high synthetical Botany For the student 

 of our native plants, it seems desirous that the herbaceous forms should 

 be kept apart as the Galiacece, especially as the intermediate leaves of the 

 whorls of the latter are rather difficult to prove to be only " stipules," 

 except to the advanced observer. 



Deutzia scabra. — The flowers of this shrub make their appearance in 

 the florists' bouquets at this season, as well as those of the Deutzia parvi- 

 fiora, and one or two others. They are easily identified, growing in little 

 racemes, the five petals snow-white, the filaments of the stamens broad and 

 dilated at the summit, and presenting a pair of erect and pointed shoulders, 

 with the anther like a little head, between, — as happens in certain species 

 of Allium, — and by the 4 — 5 long white styles. I refer to this plant on ac- 



