ILLUSTRATIONS. 91 



The pistillate flowers have narrow petals, the rudiments of 

 stamens, a deeply four-cleft style ; and each a free three- or 

 four-celled ovary, which becomes one of the roundish nearly 

 black berries. Though itself an unattractive plant not how- 

 ever without its uses the Buckthorn represents the hand 

 some Ceanothus shrubs grown in our gardens. 



The great family of the Leguminous plants, or Pod -bearers 

 (also called Papilionaceous, from the flowers, by a stretch of 

 imagination, being taken to represent a butterfly), is illustrated 

 by the Meadow Vetchling,* a weak branching perennial herb, 

 found abundantly in moist meadows and pastures. It has 

 smooth, angular, straggling or half-climbing stems, from one to 

 two feet long, furnished with branched tendrils, each bearing a 

 pair of narrow lance-shaped leaflets, and furnished at the base 

 with a pair of large broadly lanceolate sagittate stipules. From 

 the axils of these tendril-bearing leaves grow the elongated 

 flower-stalks, supporting a short raceme of from six to ten 

 yellow flowers ; they consist of a small five-toothed calyx and 

 a five-petaled papilionaceous corolla, which is made up of a 

 large upper petal, called the standard, two narrow lateral ones 

 called the wings, and two other narrow ones, more or less 

 united along the lower edge, called the keel. These flowers 

 are succeeded by small smooth pods. The plant represents the 

 Sweet Pea and Everlasting Pea cultivated for ornamental pur- 

 poses in almost every flower-garden. 



Of the Lythraceous family we have an example in the 

 beautiful Purple Loosestrife, f a willow herb, as it might well 

 be called, whose tall upright stems, supporting long spikes 

 of rich purple flowers, may be seen adorning the sides of wet 

 ditches, and the banks of streams. This very showy plant is 



* Lathyrus pratensis Plate 12 D. 

 f Lythrum Salicaria Plate 12 A. 



