120 PROSERPINA. 



with the two lateral ones, distinguished in the Mentlise 

 as the apron and the side pockets. 



Plate XII. represents the most characteristic types of 

 the blossoms of Menthse, in the profile and front views, 

 all a little magnified. The upper two are white basil, 

 purple spotted growing here at Brantwood always with 

 two terminal flowers. The two middle figures are the 

 purple-spotted dead nettle, Lamium maculatum ; and 

 the two lower, thyme : but I have not been able to draw 

 these as I wanted, the perspectives of the petals being 

 too difficult, and inexplicable to the eye even in the 

 flowers themselves without continually putting them in 

 changed positions. 



17. The Menthse are in their structure essentially 

 quadrate plants ; their stems are square, their leaves 

 opposite, their stamens either four or two, their seeds 

 two-carpeled. But their calices are five-sepaled, falling 

 into divisions of two and three ; and the flowers, though 

 essentially four-petaled, may divide either the upper or 

 lower petal, or both, into two lobes, and so present a six- 

 lobed outline. The entire plants, but chiefly the leaves, 

 are nearly always fragrant, and always innocent. None 

 of them sting, none prick, and none poison. 



IS. The Draconids, easily recognizable by their as- 

 pect, are botanically indefinable with any clearness or 

 simplicity. The calyx may be five- or four-sepaled ; the 

 corolla, five- or four-lobed ; the stamens may be two, 

 four, four with a rudimentary fifth, or five with the two 



