THE STEM. 



101 



shooting up from plebeian roots into places where they had 

 no business ; and preparing the way for the degradation of 

 the entire Roman race under the Empire ; their success be- 

 ing owed, remember also, to the faults of 

 the patricians, for one of the laws passed by 

 Calvus Stolo was that the Sibylline books 

 should be in custody of ten men, of whom 

 five should be plebeian, " that no falsifica- 

 tions might be introduced in favour of the 

 patricians." 



20. All this time, however, we have got no 

 name for the prettiest of all stems, that of 

 annual flowers growing high from among 

 their ground leaves, like lilies of the valley, 

 and saxifrages, and the tall primulas of 

 which this pretty type, Fig. 15, was cut for 

 me by Mr. Burgess years ago ; admirable in 

 its light outline of the foamy globe of flowers, 

 supported and balanced in the meadow 

 breezes on that elastic rod of slenderest 

 life. 



What shall we call it ? We had better 

 rest from our study of terms a little, and do 

 a piece of needful classifying, before we try 

 to name it. 



21. My younger readers will find it easy to learn, and con- 

 venient to remember, for a beginning of their science, the 

 names of twelve great families of cinquef oiled flowers,* of 

 which the first group of three, is for the most part golden, the 

 second, blue, the third, purple, and the fourth, red. 



And their names, by simple lips, can be pleasantly said, or 

 sung, in this order, the two first only being a little difficult 

 to get over. 



* The florets gathered in the daisy are cinquefoils, examined closely. 

 No system founded on colour can be very general or unexceptionable : 

 but the splendid purples of the pansy, and thistle, which will be made 

 one of the lower composite groups under Margarita, may justify the 

 general assertion of this order's being purple. 



FIG. 15. 



