The Labiates. 185 



round the stalk, each particular flower shaped like the 

 jaws of some terrible wild beast, wide-open and ready to 

 bite, while the stamens are invariably four in number a 

 pair of long ones and a pair of short ones. The seeds, 

 also, are exactly four. Whenever these peculiarities 

 co-exist in a plant, we may be sure that there is nothing 

 deleterious about it. More than fifty different plants 

 formed on this plan grow wild in England, and consider- 

 ably over two thousand in foreign countries, and not 

 one of them is in the least degree noxious, either to 

 quadruped or to man. Many are aromatic, and used 

 with food, as thyme, sage, mint, basil, and penny-royal; 

 while others are useful for medicinal tea, as balm and 

 ground-ivy. Rosemary, lavender, and bergamot belong to 

 the same fragrant family. The great object of botanical 

 science is to determine such facts as these, i.e., to make 

 out the relation between the form of a plant and its 

 properties; can a science of such useful, practical aim 

 be justly deemed, as by some, mere "learned trifling?" 

 Surely not. No slight advantage has that man over his 

 fellows who, when he is walking through the meadows, 

 or when he emigrates to a distant land, can discriminate 

 between the poisonous plant and the wholesome, simply 

 by examining the leaves and flowers. We do not mean 

 to say that every individual plant in the world has its 

 exact quality unmistakably configured upon it. The 

 concurrence is between certain general properties and 

 certain great types or plans of organisation, taking note 

 of which latter we gain a good general idea of the former. 



