32 ON THE CULTURE AND PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 



Great, however, as is the beauty that can brave the inclemencies 

 of Northern Europe, they must give way to the beauty and ele- 

 gance of their brethren of the Tropics. The flowers of the 

 Erythrina are of the deepest crimson, and borne on some of the 

 loftiest trees of the forest. The Bauhinias, with their snake-like 

 stems and twin leaves, hang in festoons of flowers from branch to 

 branch of other trees, and are only rivalled by the less vigorous 

 and elegant, but more richly coloured, blossoms of the Carpopo- 

 gons. But all these, with their broad heavy foliage and gaudy 

 colours, are far surpassed by the rugged trunks, trembling airy 

 foliage, and golden flowers of the Acacias. While the forests of 

 hot countries are thus indebted to Leguminosre for their timber, 

 the meadows and pastures of the same latitudes are enamelled with 

 myriads of Hedysarums and others too numerous to recite : even 

 the gayest part of the scenery of Britain is indebted, in many 

 respects, to the yellow flowers of Spartium and Ulex. 



The arrangement of this tribe of plants is attended with much 

 difficulty. By LinNjEas and others, the number of genera was 

 much smaller than those admitted by botanists of the present age : 

 many additions have been made since the discovery of New Hol- 

 land, and a large number of sub-divisions in old genera have beeir 

 from time to time introduced by different authors. To combine 

 these scattered improvements under one head, has been attempted 

 by M. Decandolle, whose system is here adopted. He divides 

 Leguminosffi into two grand divisions — the first, named Curvem- 

 briae, consisting of plants the radicle of whose seed is earned back 

 upon the edge of the cotyledons ; and the second called Rectern- 

 brire, whose radicle and cotyledons are straight. In the former, 

 certain diversities in the structure of the calyx and corolla again 

 divide into two principal forms — Papilionacca?, comprehending 

 all the genera with butterfly-shaped flowers ; and Swartziese, con- 

 sisting of an obscurely lobed calyx, and corollas with one, two, or 

 more petals. Tins last is not again divided, but the former resolve 

 themselves into two great tribes — those with fleshy cotyledons and 

 eatable pulse, Sarcoloba? ; and those with foliaceous cotyledons 

 and seeds which are not eatable, Thyllolobae. Each of these is 

 divisible by three. In Rectembrire two suborders are formed, 

 Mimos;c and Cacsalpinerc, upon variations in the aestivation of the 

 ialvx and corolla. In the former it is valvate ; in the latter imbri- 



