VI. MOXACHA. 119 



mischief like hemlock, while decoratively it is one of the 

 most precious of mountain flowers. I find myself also 

 embarrassed by my name of Vestals, because of the 

 masculine groups of Basil and Thymus, and I think it 

 will be better to call them simply Menthse, and to place 

 them with the other cottage-garden plants not yet 

 classed, taking the easily remembered names Mentha, 

 Monacha, Draconida. This will leave me a blank 

 seventh place among my twelve orders at p. 194, vol. i., 

 which I think I shall fill by taking cyclamen and ana- 

 gillis out of the Primulaceae, and making a separate 

 group of them. These retouchings and changes are in- 

 evitable in a work confessedly tentative and suggestive 

 only ; but in whatever state of imperfection I may be 

 forced to leave ; Proserpina,' it will assuredly be found, 

 up to the point reached, a better foundation for the 

 knowledge of flowers in the minds of young people than 

 any hitherto adopted system of nomenclature. 



16. Taking then this re-arranged group, Mentha, 

 Monacha, and Draconida, as a sufficiently natural and 

 convenient one, I will briefly give the essentially botani- 

 cal relations of the three families. 



Mentha and Monacha agree in being essentially hooded 

 flowers, the upper petal more or less taking the form of 

 a cup, helmet or hood, which conceals the tops of the 

 stamens. Of the three lower petals, the lowest is almost 

 invariably the longest ; it sometimes is itself divided 

 again into two, but may be best thought of as single, and 



