SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 



preparation of chocolate, is obtained from Vanilla 

 planifolia and aromatica. 



BROMELIACE^E. This family consists of about 

 a dozen genera, and more than 170 species of 

 plants, with scarcely any stem, and sometimes 

 epiphytic in their habit. Their leaves are rigid, 

 channeled, and often spiny or toothed at the 

 margin. The perianth is tubular, its parts in two 

 rows ; the outer, or calyx, in three clefts, rigid, 

 and persistent ; the inner, petaloid and deciduous ; 

 stamens, six, inserted into the tube of the perianth ; 

 ovary, free or cohering, and three-celled ; ovules, 

 indefinite ; style, single ; stigma, three-parted, 

 often twisted ; fruit, capsular or succulent, three- 

 celled, and many-seeded. 



The principal genera are Bromelta, Ananassa, 

 Billbergia, Pitcairnia, Tillandsia. They are natives 

 of moist warm climates. The common pine- apple 

 (A. saliva) receives its English name from the 

 circumstance of its fruit being covered on all sides 

 with small triangular scales, resembling the cone 

 of a pine-tree. What is called the fruit is, in fact, 

 the fruits of the same spike cohering into one 

 mass, by means of their succulent bracts. 



The order has several important uses. Several 

 of the species are esteemed for their showy blos- 

 soms ; and the tough leaf-fibres of many produce 

 excellent cordage. Some of the Tillandsias, which 

 hang their black thread-like festoons from the 

 trees of Brazil, are collected and used for stuff- 

 ing mattresses, saddles, &c. Most of the genera 

 yield a fine aromatic odour ; and from their habit 

 of retaining water in the sheathing axes of their 

 leaves, are said to be specially grateful to the 

 traveller in the regions where they abound. 



LILIACE.'E. A very extensive, and, to the florist, 

 one of the most important of the natural orders. 

 Taking the common white lily as the type, there 

 is a great resemblance in all the Lilyworts, not 

 only in their habits and forms, but also in their 

 essential characters ; but botanists have somewhat 

 perplexed themselves by subdivisions founded upon 

 minute differences. It must be confessed that the 

 limits of the order are not very clearly defined. 

 The plants may be gener- 

 ally characterised as having 

 usually scaly or tunicated 

 bulbs ; and leaves not arti- 

 culated with the stem, either 

 sessile or with a narrow 

 petiole. In some of the 

 genera, the flowers are erect 

 and single, as in the tulip ; 

 in others, they are erect, but 

 in umbels, as in the orange- 

 lily ; and in others they are 

 in racemes and drooping, as 

 in yucca ; or single and drooping, as in the fritil- 

 lary ; or with the segments curved back, as in the 

 martagon lily. Perianth, coloured, regular, and 

 divided into six segments, occasionally tubular ; 

 stamens, six, inserted into the segments of the peri- 

 anth ; anthers, opening inwards ; ovary, superior, 

 three-celled, and many-seeded ; style, one ; stigma, 

 simple or three-lobed ; fruit, either a three-celled, 

 three-valved capsule, or fleshy, and then occasion- 

 ally tripartite. The seeds of the Asphodeleoe have 

 a black, crustaceous, brittle testa ; in the Tulipeae j 

 and Hemerocallidea2 the testa is brown and ' 

 spongy. 

 The following plants may be mentioned as illus- 



Liliaceous Flower. 



trative of the principal genera : Lilium chalcc- 

 donicttm, the scarlet martagon lily, supposed to be 

 the Krinon, or lily of the field of the New Testa- 

 ment ; Tulipa sylvestris, the wild yellow tulip ; 

 Allium cepa, the onion ; Fritillaria Meleagris, 

 the fritillary ; Hyaeinthus orientalis, the garden 

 hyacinth ; Endymion nutans, the bluebell ; Aspar- 

 agus offidnalis, the garden asparagus ; Muscari 

 racemosa, the grape hyacinth ; Erythronium dens- 

 canis, the dog's-tooth violet ; Phormium knar, 

 the New Zealand flax ; Aloe, the aloe ; Hemero- 

 callis, the day-lily; Scilla, squills; Asphoddus, 

 king's spear ; Ornithogalum umbellatitm, the star 

 of Bethlehem or doves' dung of Scripture. The 

 Lilyworts are found in every quarter of the globe, 

 being more abundant, however, in temperate than 

 in tropical climates, where they exist chiefly in 

 arborescent forms. 



The properties of the order present considerable 

 differences. All the Asphodeleae contain a bitter 

 stimulant principle, and have a viscid juice, as is 

 exemplified by the onion, garlic, leek, and chives. 

 The roots of some are purgative, as the aloe ; 

 while those of several lilies are eaten in Siberia. 

 Gum-dragon is the styptic juice of Draccena 

 Draco, which yields a gum called Dragons' Blood ; 

 New Zealand flax is the tough fibre of the leaf of 

 Phormium tenax; squills is a well-known demul- 

 cent ; and the succulent suckers of asparagus are 

 largely eaten as a vegetable. Xanthorhoea hostile 

 and arborea are the grass-trees of New South Wales, 

 which yield a resin used by the natives for fixing 

 wooden handles to stone hatchets or hammers. 



PALMACEJE. An important order of arborescent 

 plants, with lofty, usually unbranched trunks, 

 bearing a tuft of leaves on 

 the summit. The leaves are 

 large, pinnate or fan-shaped ; 

 flowers, small, arranged on 

 a simple or branched spadix, 

 which is inclosed in a one 

 or many valved spathe ; 

 florets, bisexual or polyga- 

 mous ; perianth, six-parted, 

 and persistent, its parts in a 

 double row the three outer 

 segments often smaller, the 

 three inner sometimes deeply 

 connate ; stamens inserted 

 into the base of the perianth, 

 usually six, seldom three, and in a few polygamous 

 species, indefinite ; ovary, one or three celled, or 

 deeply three-lobed ; ovules, three, rarely one ; 

 fruit, a nut, drupe, or berry ; albumen, cartilagin- 

 ous or hard, often ruminate, with a central cavity. 



The principal genera are Cocos, the coco-nut ; 

 Phcenix, the date-palm ; Sagus, the sago-palm ; 

 Calamus, the rattan canes ; Areca, the betel-nut ; 

 Borassus, the Palmyra-palm ; Ceroxylon, the wax- 

 palm ; Flats, the oil-palm ; Lodoicca, the double 

 coco-nut ; Phytelephas, the vegetable ivory-palm ; 

 and Hyphane, the doom-palm of Egypt. They 

 are strictly inhabitants of the tropics, to the natives 

 of which they are undoubtedly the most useful 

 order of vegetation. 



The properties of the Palms are numerous and 

 varied wine, oil, wax, flour, sugar, salt, tnr ?ad, 

 utensils, habitations, and food, being obtained 

 from numerous species. Coir, which is worked 

 into mats and cordage, is the dry fibrous pericarp 

 of the coco-nut. 



Talm. 



