170 VERBE'NA. ODOROUS LEAVES. 



ficient quantity. The Honey-flower, Melian'thus, 

 a Cape plant, is of this class and order. It pro- 

 duces honey in such great abundance, that a tea- 

 spoonful may be collected every morning from each 

 of its flowers, of which there is always a great 

 number ; but the strong and disagreeable smell of 

 the plant when it is bruised indicates a poisonous 

 quality. There is another flower, but of the class 

 Hexandria, the Crown Imperial, Fritilla'ria impe- 

 ria'lis, which produces nearly as much honey ; but 

 the plant is so poisonous that bees will not collect 

 it : this beautiful plant, now so common, was intro- 

 duced into Europe by Clusius, a professor of bo- 

 tany at Leyden, who received it from the East, 

 along with the Horse Chesnut, more than two hun- 

 dred years ago. 



Snapdragon, Antirrhinum, and Vervain, Ver- 

 be'na, are other examples of the order Angio- 

 spermia in the fourteenth class. 



EDWARD. 



Verbe'na is the plant in the greenhouse that has 

 such sweet-scented leaves ; they have a smell of 

 lemon, even when they are dry. 



MOTHER. 



There are several species of Verbe'na, and the 

 one you mean is the triphyl'la, or three-leaved 

 Vervain. It is a native of Chili in South America. 



