74 OXALIDACE.E. 



There is a yellow Oxalis with a taller stem and small flowers 

 growing in clusters of two or three. It grows wild in neglected 

 gardens, and a few warm woods. My specimens were from a 

 garden at Brixton, in Wiltshire ; none knew how it came 

 there, but each year fresh plants appeared among the Mint. 

 Mr. Ward had it in his botanic garden (O. corniculata) . 



This order concludes the Receptacle subclass, the grand 

 distinctive feature of which is that all the parts are built on the 

 receptacle. One occasional supplementary part of a plant we 

 have left unnoticed, though it exists in several of the plants 

 we have handled. In the Sea and Purple Sandworts, each little 

 cluster of leaves has a large semi-transparent scale which covers 

 its juncture with the stem, this is called a stipule. These 

 leaf-like appendages vary from the simple form of a mere scale 

 to the full structure of a real leaf. In the Lime the bract, for 

 so it is called when accompanying the flower-stalk, is paler than 

 a leaf, though veined like one ; in the Willow-herb family it is 

 the same colour as the leaves. The Samphire has a cluster of 

 flowers (Plate IX., jig. 7), which is called an umbel. Where 

 the flowers join the main stem there is a row of bracts all round ; 

 this collection of bracts is called an involucre or wrapper. 

 Compound flowers, as the Thistle (Plate XL, Jig. 3), have 

 row upon row of these bracts, or what is called a compound 

 involucre. The acorn-cup is another form of united bracts. 

 When such leaflets occur at the foot of the leafstalk, instead of 

 the flower-stalk, as is the case with the Eose-leaf and the 

 Sandwort, they are called stipules. 



EOOTS. 



The root is a very important part of the plant, and we ought 

 not longer to delay a study of it. The so-called "creeping 

 roots" of Solomon's Seal (jig. A), Anemone (fig. B), Coralwort 

 (jig. C), and Water Lily, are merely underground stems with 

 little roots at their joints. They are marked with scales, which 



