CHAPTEE X. 

 THE LABIATJE. 



EXERCISE LIY. 

 Characters of the Labiatce. 



CHILDREN who live in or visit the country, and 

 those familiar with market-places, know what mints 

 are, and can easily get peppermint, spearmint, catnip, 

 sage, pennyroyal, thyme, balm, and such like plants, 

 to illustrate this exercise. Compare your specimens 

 with the following description : 



Herbs, with square stems and opposite aromatic 

 leaves ; flowers, with a more or less two-lipped corol- 

 la, didynamous or diandrous stamens usually with 

 diverging anthers; ovary, deeply four-lobed, on a 

 fleshy disk, four-celled, each cell with one erect ovule 

 forming in fruit four little seed -like nutlets or 

 achenia, around the base of the single style, in the 

 bottom of the persistent calyx. Seeds with little 

 albumen ; cotyledons flat. Stamens inserted on the 

 tube of the corolla. Stigma, forked. Flowers, ax- 

 illary, chiefly in cymose clusters, that are sometimes 

 gathered into spikes or racemes. Leaves, usually 

 dotted with glands, containing a pungent, fragrant, 

 volatile oil. 



Whenever you find a plant that answers to this 

 description, it belongs to the order Labiatse. The 

 group is named from the two-lipped corolla of its 

 flowers, but you cannot know one of these plants by 



