CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 

 THE LABIATE. 



EXERCISE LXVIII. 

 Characters of the Labiatae. 



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, penny- 

 royal, thyme, balm, and such like plants, to illustrate this 

 exercise. Compare your specimens with the following de- 

 scription : 



Herbs, with square stems and opposite aromatic leaves ; 

 flowers, with a more or less two-lipped corolla, didyna- 

 mous 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, axillary, chiefly 

 in cymose clusters, that are sometimes gathered into spikes 

 or racemes. Leaves, usually dotted with glands, contain- 

 ing a pungent, volatile oil. 



Whenever you find a plant that answers to this de- 

 scription, it belongs to the order Labiatas. The group is 

 named from the two-lipped corolla of its flowers, but you 

 can not know one of these plants by this circumstance 

 alone. There are many plants with labiate flowers that 



