CHAPTER XIV 



used in the manufacture of woolens ; the teasel often escapes from 

 cultivation and becomes a troublesome weed. The family Capri- 

 foliacese contains the elder as well as the honeysuckle and snowberry, 

 all noted in the Supplement to Chapter VIII. The family Rubiacese 

 has but one California genus, Galium, consisting of low, weak, 

 square-stemmed plants with leaves in whorls, and small greenish 

 flowers. This genus does not well illustrate the kinship of this family 

 to Compositse ; the relationship is more apparent in some other 

 Rubiacese, the cultivated button-bush for instance. Two other genera, 

 the Cinchona of South America and the CofFea of Abyssinia, because 

 of the alkaloids they contain, have become of great commercial 

 importance, and are now widely cultivated in tropical countries. 

 Quinine is obtained from the bark of the Cinchona. The coffee is a 

 small evergreen, producing berries that contain two seeds each. All 

 the coffee of commerce is from the same species, but the seeds are of 

 different quality in different climates. It has been cultivated in 

 Arabia for five centuries, and in Java for two. 



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