ILLUSTRATIONS. 103 



stamens with distinct anthers, inserted within the base of the 

 corolla but free from it ; and a style cleft at the top into two 

 or three stigmatic lobes. The capsule, which is of course in- 

 ferior, is pendulous, and opens by short clefts near its base. 

 It is a really elegant little plant. 



The family of Ericaceous plants, represented by what Mr. 

 Bentham calls the Scotch Heath,^ is another Monopetalous 

 group in which the stamens are free from the corolla, but in 

 this case they are hypogynous. This very common and very 

 beautiful plant, though it has been distinguished as the Scotch 

 Heath, is by no means confined to that country, but ranges 

 over the whole of Britain, and is common in Western Europe, 

 covering immense tracts of moorland, which in the flowering 

 season are sheeted with the rich purple of the heather-bells. 

 It is a dwarf bushy shrub, of about a foot in height, clothed 

 with fine linear leaves which are usually set three in a whorl, 

 with clusters of smaller leaves in their axils. The flowers 

 are numerous, in dense terminal elongated whorled racemes, 

 and are furnished with a calyx of four small sepals ; an ovoid 

 corolla, with a contracted mouth, and four very small lobes or 

 teeth ; eight stamens enclosed in the corolla, and remark- 

 able for their opening by two pores at the top, and also for 

 having a small toothed appendage at the point where the an- 

 thers are joined to the filament ; and a long style thickened 

 at the stigmatic end. The fruit is a free four-celled capsule. 

 It will be observed that the Heaths are plants in which the 

 parts of the flower are made up in fours or in multiples of 

 four ; hence they belong to what are called tetramerous plants, 

 those in which the parts are governed by the more usual num- 

 ber, five, being called pentamerous. It has already been 

 pointed out that in the great group of Monocotyledons the 

 number three is that which governs the part of the flowers. 



* Erica cinerea — Plate 15 C. 



