VERONICA. 205 



CHAPTER m 



VERONICA. 



1. "THE Corolla of the Foxglove," says Dr. Lindley, begin- 

 ning his account of the tribe at page 195 of the first volume of 

 his 'Ladies' Botany,' "is a large inflated body (!), with its throat 

 spotted with rich purple, and its border divided obliquely into 

 five very short lobes, of which the two upper are the smaller ; 

 its four stamens are of unequal length, and its style is divided 

 into two lobes at the upper end. A number of long hairs 

 cover the ovary, which contains two cells and a great quantity 

 of ovules. 



" This " (sc. information) " will show you what is the usual 

 character of the Foxglove tribe ; and you will find that all the 

 other genera referred to it in books agree with it essentially, 

 although they differ in subordinate points. It is chiefly (A) 

 in the form of the corolla, (B) in the number of the stamens, 

 (C) in the consistence of the rind of the fruit, (D) in its form, 

 (E) in the number of the seeds it contains, and (F) in the 

 manner in which the sepals are combined, that these differ- 

 ences consist." 



2. The enumerative letters are of my insertion otherwise 

 the above sentence is, word for word, Dr. Lindley's, and it 

 seems to me an interesting and memorable one in the history 

 of modern Botanical science. For it appears from the tenor 

 of it, that in a scientific botanist's mind, six particulars, at 

 least, in the character of a plant, are merely ' subordinate 

 points, ' namely, 



1. (F) The combination of its calyx, 



2. (A) The shape of its corolla, 



3. (B) The number of its stamens, 



4. (D) The form of its fruit, 



5. (C) The consistence of its shell, and 



6. (E) The number of seeds in it 



Abstracting, then, from the primary description, all the six 

 inessential points, I find the three essential ones left are, that 



