533 



pointed, obtuse, or abrupt. Stamens ten, nine of which 

 have their filaments united, more than half way up, form- 

 ing a membranous sheath to the pistil ; the tenth stick- 

 ing closely under the pistil, and being sometimes in- 

 serted into the base of the tube composed by the other 

 nine. Hence arise two divisions of the order, without 

 attention to which the genera are with difficulty de- 

 fined. Pistil generally uniform; the style downy or 

 woolly, either above or below; stigma either acute or ca- 

 pitate. Legume of two valves, which must not be con- 

 founded with a Siliqua, or Pod> though old writers have 

 so termed it, applying that name equally to the fruit of 

 this order and that of the Tetradynamia class. As these 

 fruits differ widely in structure, Linneeus has restricted to 

 the latter the term pod, whose character is to have the 

 seeds attached to each suture of the valves ; whereas in 

 the legume, or fruit of the class Diadelphia, they are con- 

 nected with one suture, or margin, only. The name of 

 legumen indeed originally belonged to the seed itself of 

 these plants ; but for want of a better \vord, Linnseus has 

 applied it to their seed-vessel. The legume is mostly of 

 one cell, containing many seeds ; except Astragalus and 

 Biserrula, in which one suture is internally dilated, as it 

 were, so as to make a partition, separating the fruit into 

 two cells; whilst Phaca has the same part extended only 

 half the breadth of the legume, rendering the separation 

 incomplete. Geoffraa has a drupa, which still ought to 

 be considered as a single-seeded legume, whose pulp is 

 hardened," (or rather, whose coat is made pulpy.) " The 

 ripe legume bursts along its sutures, and throws out its 

 seeds. There are indeed some which do not open in this 

 manner, but fall off in separate joints, each containing a 

 seed, examples of which are Hedysarum and Ornithopus.'' 

 " The genera of this natural order so nearly approach 

 each other, that it is difficult to detect their discriminative 

 characters. Tournefort, though he distributed other ge- 

 nera by their flowers, divided and determined these by 



