i.] OLEACE^E. 185 



hermaphrodite, and provided with both calyx and corolla, 

 as in Privet (Ligustru?ri), the only native 'species of the 

 Order in Britain besides the Ash. The case of the Ash 

 serves, however, to show that the suppression of calyx and 

 corolla in a single species or genus of a Natural Order is 

 not regarded as of sufficient moment to warrant its re- 

 moval to the Incomplete. In another (South European) 

 species of Ash (F. Ornus\ called the Flowering Ash, calyx 

 and corolla are present. 



The flowers of Common Ash are termed polygamous, 

 because they are either staminate, pistillate, or herma- 

 phrodite, and the different kinds of flowers may be upon 

 the same or different trees. In a variety of the Ash, 

 called the "Weeping Ash/' the branches are naturally 

 pendulous. The original of this variety, from which all 

 have been propagated by cuttings, is said to have been 

 found in Cambridgeshire. Young plants, raised from 

 seeds of the Weeping Ash by Professor Henslow, had a 

 tendency to "weep" in their first branching, but the 

 anomaly disappeared in two or three years in several 

 young trees which he raised. 



The wood of the Ash is very tough and elastic, and 

 valued by cart- and wheelwrights. Manna, is the concrete 

 sap of species of Ash (F. Ornus and F. rotundifolia), 

 collected from wounds in the bark in summer and 

 autumn. It is procured in Sicily. 



The Olive (Olea europ&a), emblem of peace and plenty, 

 a native of Syria and Greece, has been cultivated from a 

 remote period on the shores of the Mediterranean, in 

 Spain and the South of France, for the sake of the 

 valuable oil (Olive-oil) expressed from the pulp of its 

 drupaceous fruit. 



The Lilac (Syringd) and Jessamine (J'asmmum) are 

 members of the rder, everywhere grown in gardens. 

 Observe the symmetry of the flowers of these two plants, 

 representing two divisions of the Order, the former with 

 the parts of the calyx and corolla in fours and valvate in 

 bud, the latter with five or more divisions to the corolla 

 and overlapping (imbricate) in aestivation. 



42. Natural Order Apocynaceas. The Periwinkle 

 Family. 



