GARDEN BOTANY. 



Spinacia Oleracea, SPINACH. Flowers dioecious ; calyx greenish, 

 4-5-parted in the sterile, ventricose-tubular and 2-3-toothed in the fertile 

 flowers ; styles 4, long and slender t achenium enclosed in the globular cap- 

 sule-like calyx, which is often 2 -4-horned on the back ; root annual ; leaves 

 sagittate or hastate and lanceolate, petioled : the best of potherbs. 



3. Boussingaultia baselloides grows from tubers like potatoes ; these 

 send up twining stems, climbing high, bearing smooth and succulent cordate- 

 ovate leaves, and in autumn bear long racemes or spikes of small, white, 

 sweet-scented flowers ; sepals and stamens usually 6 ; style 1 : stigmas 3, thick. 



ORDER AM All ANT ACE JE. AMARANTH FAMILY. 



Manual, p. 367. A few are cultivated ; their dry and scarious bracts, being 

 hrightly colored and persistent, render these plants lastingly ornamental, al- 

 though the flowers themselves are insignificant. 



Utricle (little pod) many-seeded, opening transversely by a lid. . 1. CEL03IA. 



Utricle one-seeded, opening transversely by a lid : anthers 2-celled. 2. AMAHANTUS. 



Utricle one-seeded : anthers 1-celled : flowers in heads. ... 3. GOMP1IRENA. 



1. Celosia cristata, COCKSCOMB. Annual : with coarse herbage and 

 dense crimson spikes, which are flattened, in the choicer sorts much dilated, 

 wavy and crested, resembling cocks' combs. 



2. Amarantus hypochondriacus and A. paniculatus, Man. p. 368, 

 are the coarser sorts of PRINCE'S FEATHER in gardens. 



A. caudatus, LONG-TAILED A. or PRINCE'S FEATHER. Annual, 3 or 

 4 high ; leaves ovate or lance-oblong, often purplish ; flowers in a panicle of 

 many slender drooping spikes, the terminal one very long, deep crimson ; 

 bracts short. 



A. melanch.oli.CUS, LOVE-LIES BLEEDING. Cult, for the purple or 

 blood-red (oblong-ovate) leaves, the flower-clusters inconspicuous, being in 

 the axils and much shorter than the petioles. Var. tricolor; leaves green 

 or purplish, marked with red. 



3. Gomphrena globosa, GLOBE AMARANTH. Low branching annual, 

 pubescent, with oblong entire leaves, hardly petioled, and round heads of 

 flowers, very compact, with firm unfading bracts, crimson, rosy, or white. 



ORDER POLYGONACEJS. BUCKWHEAT FAMILY. 



Manual, p. 371. BUCKWHEAT, cult, for its grain, Polvgonum orientale (also 

 called PRINCE'S FEATHER), for ornament, described in Man. p. 372, 375, and 



1. Rheum Rhaponticum, GARDEN RHUBARB or PIE-PLANT. Flowers 

 panicled, with 6 white sepals and 9 stamens ; leaves round-cordate or kidney- 

 shaped, mostly radical, very large, the fleshy acid petioles cooked in spring. 



ORDER THYMELACE^l. MEZEREUM FAMILY. 

 Manual, p. 380. Cultivated for ornament are two species of the genus 



Daphne. Calyx salver-form or somewhat funnel-form, 4-lobed ; the sla- 

 mens 8, included ; almost no filaments : berries red. 



D. Mezereum, MEZEREUM. A hardy shrub, 1 to 3 high, frith bright 

 rose-colored flowers, in fascicles along the shoots of the previous year, in 

 earliest spring, the lanceolate leaves coming later. 



