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DICOTYLEDONS TJRTICACUffi DIAGRAM 1 5 . 



proper bitter taste. (The hop is 

 also a plant with separate sexes. 

 The female flowers grow in 

 clusters at the end of the stalks, 

 and somewhat resemble small 

 pine-cones, with very thin and 

 delicate scales. We shall come 

 to families in which all the 

 flowers are thus arranged in 

 similar clusters. It is the female 

 clusters of the hop which are 

 employed. 



The hops are planted at the foot 

 Female flower of hop. Hop. of long poles six or eight yards 



high, up which the plant climbs. When the time to gather 

 it has come, the year's growth is cut, the 

 pole is lowered, and the clusters are gathered 

 and dried for sale. At the bottom of each 

 scale is found a small quantity of a yellow 

 bitter resinous substance, which gives its 

 taste to beer. 



The mulberry is a very valuable tree, 

 not for the sake of its fruit, though this 

 is eatable, but because it is grown so 

 extensively in Southern Europe for 

 Mulberry. feeding silkworms. 



The fig is also an abundant tree throughout Southern Europe, 

 though only seen occasionally in English gardens. Figs are eaten 

 either fresh, or dried ; and dried figs packed in boxes are very 

 largely imported into England. 



The fig is a fruit which at once strikes us as peculiar, because 

 the fruit is not seen to succeed the flower on the tree. It is really 

 not a fruit like others. If we pluck a young fig and open it, we 

 perceive a cavity in the interior with an orifice at the top. On 



