TROP.EOLUM. 97 



help of its leaf -stalks. Thus it may arise 3 feet, or protected 

 from frosts in the house, 6 feet. 



The Leaves have the form of a shield or target (pelta) 

 called -peltate. The roundish or angular blade is attached to 

 its stalk not by its margin, but by a point within. It is a 

 singular form ; but if you compare it with a leaf of the 

 Horseshoe Geranium (p. 87) you will doubtless conclude 

 that it results from the cohesion of the 2 base lobes. The 

 same thing occurs in the Ivy Geranium. The long petiole, 

 when its help is needed in climbing, coils about the support- 

 ing object like a tendril, as in that plant also. 



The Flower. All parts of the 5-parted irregular flower 

 are alike colored, orange or variegated. The upper sepal is 

 united at the base with the other 4 and produced backward 

 into a spur. The petals are inserted in or on the throat of 

 the spur, the 2 upper sessile, the 3 lower fringed (fimbriate) 

 at the base and supported on a claw (unguis), or unguiculate. 

 There are 8 unequal stamens, and 3 ovaries around the cen- 

 tral axis or style. (See .Fig. XXIII, Appendix.) 



The .Fruit. The ripe fruit contains 3 large, fleshy, 

 ribbed, 1-seeded nuts, such as we often see upon the table 

 as a substitute for Capers.* 



Classification. This plant is sometimes called Trophy- 

 wort, its leaves and flowers being likened to shields and 

 helmets. For a like reason the generic name is Tropceolum 

 (tropaum, a trophy). The species is T. major ; i. e., the 

 Greater Trophywort. Its flowers 5-parted and spurred, its 

 stamens unsymmetricah and its 1-seeded, separable carpels, 

 ally it to the Storkbills and the Order Geraniacese. 



The Order Geraniacese, as now constituted, associates 16 genera 

 and nearly 750 species. But the association is not truly natural, and 



* The true capers are the flower-buds of Capparis spinosa, a shrub of S. Europe, 

 preserved in vinegar. 



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