354 AUTUMN FLOWERS AND FRUITS. 



limb, with short, broad, spreading lobes, of a d.eep blue within, 

 marked with a broad greenish band down the middle of each 

 segment, and yellowish towards the base. There are five 

 stamens affixed to the corolla tube, two stigmas, and a one- 

 celled ovary. This genus contains some of the most beautiful 

 of dwarf herbaceous plants known, some of which are met with 

 in gardens. One of them, G. acaulis, the Gentianella of gar- 

 dens, a native of the South of Europe, is not uncommon, and 

 a good deal resembles one of our native species, G. verna. 



Our autumnal flora furnishes us with another illustration 

 of the Labiate family, in the Pennyroyal,^ one of the Mint 

 genus, and a familiar medicinal herb. It is a prostrate, power- 

 fully-scented plant, with slender stems rooting at the joints as 

 they slowly spread over the surface, ascending at the points, 

 and furnished with small ovate-obtuse, slightly -crenated leaves, 

 which become still smaller towards the top, where they serve 

 as bracts to the axillary verticillasters or half-whorls of flowers. 

 The flowers are small, with a tubular calyx, divided into five 

 regular lobes, the throat closed with hairs, and a labiate co- 

 rolla, tubular below and somewhat bell-shaped above, with a 

 four-lobed limb, the upper lobe broader and sometimes slightly 

 notched ; within the corolla are four equal stamens, a single 

 style cleft at top into two stigmatic lobes, and rising up from 

 the centre of the four-lobed ovary, which becomes developed 

 into four smooth nuts. To the same genus belong the various 

 Mints, several of which are familiar as culinary or medicinal 

 herbs. 



Among the Monochlamyds occur a group of plants of weedy 

 character, called the Chenopodiaceous family. An example of 

 it is seen in the Many-seeded Goosefoot,t an annual weed found 



* Mentha Pulegiwn — Plate 23 D. 



t Chenopodium polyspermum — Plate 23 E. 



