COW- WHEAT. 55 



racteristic a feature in those parts in the typical plant. 

 The flowers are a bright pure yellow in colour that may be 

 defined as pale gold. It is about intermediate in tint 

 between the delicate colour of the primrose and the full 

 rich yellow of the buttercup. The flowers always spring 

 in pairs from the bases of the leaves, and all are turned in 

 one direction. This curious feature may be readily noticed 

 in the figure, where the two pairs on the one piece and the 

 three pairs on the other all rigidly point in their own 

 direction. The blossoms are somewhat quaint in form, 

 and show the irregularity that is so marked a feature in all 

 the plants of the order ; the lower lip, it will be seen, stands 

 sharply out instead of hanging downwards, as we find to be 

 the case in most flowers of like structure. The great 

 majority of our flowers, when attentively considered, will be 

 found to be either multi-symmetrical and composed of 

 several similar parts, as the dog-rose or the apple, or else 

 bi-symmetrical, and only divisible into similar halves. Of 

 this latter the pansy is a good example, and this bi-symmet- 

 rical character is a marked feature in the Scrophulariacese, 

 as we may very well see by examining the flowers of the 

 speedwells, the mulleins, snapdragon, foxglove, bartsia, eye- 

 bright, rattle, or the present plant. Several examples of the 

 order have appeared amongst our figures, and our readers 

 will have no difficulty in seeing the point to which we refer. 

 It must not, however, be supposed that this feature is an 

 exclusive distinction appertaining to this order. All flowers 

 that belong to the Scrophulariacese show this structure, but 

 all flowers that show this structure are not Scrophulariacese. 

 We see it again in the Labiates, for example, the dead nettle, 

 the stachys, the self-heal, and the ground ivy being ready 

 illustrations. 



