ILLUSTRATIONS. 8 



shaped corollas of the Campanula. We will not now stay- 

 to examine the Primrose further^ but pass on with the remark, 

 that on the inside of the corolla-tube are fixed five stamens, 

 and just visible in its mouth is the round-headed stigma on 

 its long slender stalk, looking very much like a pin dropped 

 into the tube. The Primrose illustrates one form under which 

 the large Dicotyledonous group, to which we shall have to 

 recur, is developed. 



At a very early period, too, comes the Snowdrop,^ one of 

 the Amaryllidaceous family, a doubtful wilding perhaps, but 

 here and there established in meadows and pastures, in seem- 

 ingly wild localities : always welcome as " the early herald 

 of the infant year,^^ or, as Mrs. Barbauld calls it, " the first 

 pale blossom of the unripened year/^ its pendent bells rivalling 

 in purity the snow-flakes which not unfrequently fall around 

 them. The grassy leaves and pendulous flowers of the Snow- 

 drop are familiar to every one ; the three white outer concave 

 segments of the latter form the sepaline divisions of the pe- 

 rianth, and represent the calyx, and the three inner, which are 

 smaller and tipped with green, form the petaline divisions 

 representing the corolla. In the inside are six stamens ; while 

 the ovary or immature seed-vessel is formed entirely beneath 

 the other parts of the flower, that is, below the actual base of 

 the parts though in reality uppermost as the flower hangs : 

 hence it is called inferior. 



We have in the Snowdrop an excellent illustration of ano- 

 ther large group or class of plants — the Monocotyledons, so 

 named because their seeds are furnished with only one in- 

 stead of the two cotyledons or lobes which are found in the 

 larger proportion of the flowering plants, hence called Dicoty- 

 ledons. Take one of them for examination. There is first a 



* Galanthus nivalis— Tlate 6 B. 



B 2 



