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foi-mer the arrangement is fairly uniform. The stem is square, the 

 stamens are four, and very often the antlers are divided into 

 lobes so as to form a double cross; the carpels contain four seeds, 

 which arrange themselves into a perfect square. Yet the corolla 

 and calyx are each divided into five lobes. In the Cruciferas 

 there are four sepals, four petals, four nectaries, and four stamens 

 of equal length, but the stems are not square, the carpels 

 are but two and there is an additional pair of long 

 stamens; nevertheless the fourfold character is the most 

 evident mark of these two orders, as also of the Herb Paris, the 

 Galium Cruciatum, and a few other plants. The mineral world 

 has no fours, the few tetrahedrons and squares being referable to 

 the triangular shape. 



Five is a number that plays a singular part in Nature. 

 It is the leaf number of almost all our best known plants 

 and trees. Most of the Dicotyledonous flowers have five 

 divisions to their calyx and corolla, their ovaries are mostly 

 formed of five carpels, and their stamens are some multiple of five. 

 Generally, too, their leaves are arranged in a spiral in which every 

 fifth leaf comes on the same perpendicular line. There is no 

 number more common in our higher plants than this; and 

 curiously enough, it seems to overleap the boundary and fasten 

 on those animals which are always considered nearest of kin to 

 the vegetable world. The Zoanthariac Actinozoa always have 

 their tentacula in multiples of five, the Dicotyledonous number, 

 or three, the Monocotyledonous number. Our common anemones 

 display on their bases a radiated structure, in which five 

 conspicuous marks may be observed. The little fresh-water hydra 

 spreads five tiny tentacles to catch his prey ; the star-fish has five 

 arms or ten, the double of five. The sea urchin is covered with 

 five sided plates, arranged in five double zones, radiating from a 

 mouth furnished with five teeth, Avhich crown a curious five-sided 

 structure called the ' ' lantern." The Holothuria, and other kindred 

 -organisms, repeat, vnth less accuracy, this division into five radial 



