ILLUSTRATIONS. 99 



stalked, the upper ones sessile, but not united at the base as 

 in our other native Honeysuckles. The flowers are stalk- 

 less, forming close terminal stalked heads, yellowish, tinged 

 externally with red, and, as every one knows, deliciously 

 scented, the pale wan flowers, well compensating their sickly 

 looks '* with never-cloying odours.^^ They consist of a calyx 

 with five small teeth ; a monopetalous corolla with a narrow 

 elongated tube, and a two lipped limb, of which the upper lip 

 has four lobes and the lower one is entire ; five stamens ; a 

 filiform style with a capitate stigma; and a two- or three- 

 celled ovary growing into a small one- or few-seeded berry. 



The Ladies' Bedstraw* is one of a genus of weak straggling 

 herbs, representing the Galiaceous family; which itself is 

 sometimes, under the name of Stellates, referred as a section 

 to the Rubiaceous or Cinchonaceous family. The Galiums 

 have spreading or straggling stems, and narrow leaves placed 

 in wRorls around the stem. The species here represented is 

 a smooth branching herb, with decumbent or ascending stems, 

 which have the small linear leaves in whorls of six or eight, 

 and which terminate in oblong panicles of bright yellow 

 flowers. These have the calyx completely consolidated with 

 the ovary, without any visible border, and a rotate four-lobed 

 corolla, of which the tube is hardly perceptible ; four stamens 

 alternating with the lobes of the corolla; and a style cleft in 

 two, with a capitate stigma on each branch. The fruit is 

 small, dry, smooth, two-lobed, with one seed to each lobe. 



The Red Valerian,t another of the epigynous Monopetal ^, 

 represents the Valerianaceous family. This plant, a perennial 

 herb, native of the southern parts of Europe, is now natu- 

 ralized in many localities, on old walls and on chalky cliffs, 



* Galium verum — Plate 14 B. 

 t Centranthus ruber — Plate 14 C. 



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