232 PRACTICAL LESSONS IN SCIENCE. 



merous thick, yellow petals, the stigma forming a broad disk in 

 the center of the flower. The Egyptian lotus and the Victoria 

 Regia of the Amazon, with leaves three feet or more in diameter, 

 belong to this interesting family. 



The Poppy Family is made up of herbs which have a milky or 

 colored juice. The calyx consitsof two sepals which are deciduous; 

 the petals and stamens are numerous, the ovary one-celled, rip- 

 ening into a many-seeded pod. Several members of the family 

 are cultivated for ornament. The juice of the opium poppy, fur- 

 nishing the opium and morphine so much used in medicine, makes 

 this one of the noted families of plants. The bloodroot, with its 

 reniform, palmate-lobed leaf, its white petals, and its blood-red 

 juice, is one of the most interesting flowers of early spring. 



The Cruciferse, or Mustard Family, consist of a large group of 

 herbs having a pungent watery juice and four-parted cruciform 

 flowers. The cabbage, turnip, mustard, radish, water-cress 

 and horseradish are members of this family which are used as 

 food. Some are prized as ornamental plants, as candytuft and 

 sweet alyssum, and others are troublesome weeds, as the shep- 

 herd's purse. These plants are widely distributed throughout 

 the temperate regions, especially in southern Europe and south- 

 western Asia. 



The flowers are much alike, having four sepals, four petals, 

 with long claws and spreading blade; the stamens are tetra- 

 dynarnous, four long and two shorter. They have a two-celled 

 ovary which forms a pod called a silique, or if short a silicle. 

 These pods are two-celled by a false partition between the two 

 parietal placenta?. It generally opens from the apex toward the 

 base by the sides splitting off, leaving the partition with the 

 placentae and seeds. The flower cluster is a raceme, often a com- 

 pound raceme. In this cluster each flower has a pedicel which is 

 a branch of a common axis, the lowest blossoms being the oldest, 

 so that often fruit may be found in the lower part of the cluster 

 with buds at the top and all stages between. The flowers of the 

 shepherd's purse are in a compound raceme, and the pod is a 

 silicle. The root leaves are pinnatified, and the stem leaves are 



