ILLUSTRATIONS. 105 



branched rise to the surface of the water. They bear a single 

 leaf at each upper branch, and a terminal floating tuft of 

 leaves and flowers. The leaves are long-stalked, and are 

 smooth, roundish, deeply cordate, lying on the water's surface 

 like those of the Water Lily, of which they are miniatures. The 

 flowers grow several from the tuft, and are just elevated above 

 the water. They are rather large, yellow, consisting of a five- 

 cleft calyx ; a nearly rotate (that is, short-tubed and spreading, 

 so as to become wheel -like) plaited corolla, slightly fringed at 

 the base within, and finely toothed round the margin ; five 

 stamens ; and a five-cleft stigma. The capsule breaks open 

 unequally, not having any regular valves. 



The Greek Valerian, or Jacob's Ladder,*" belongs to the same 

 series, and represents the Polemoniaceous family, better known 

 in gardens by the fine hardy herbaceous genus Phlox, and 

 the annual Gilia. The Greek Valerian, common in cottage 

 gardens, and found in some places apparently wild, is a per- 

 ennial herb, producing at the base tufts of leaves, which are 

 pinnate or divided into separate leaflets or little leaves, from 

 eleven to twenty-one in number, of a lance-shaped figure, and 

 quite entire. These leaves are what are called impari- pinnate, 

 that is to say, pinnate with the leaflets in opposite pairs along 

 the sides, and having an odd terminal one. The flower-stems, 

 in vigorous plants reaching two feet in height, bear a few 

 small pinnate leaves, and terminate in a kind of corymbose 

 panicle of showy blue flowers, which have a five-lobed calyx, 

 a regular rotate five-lobed purplish-blue corolla, five stamens, 

 the filaments of which are dilated into hairy scales, and a 

 simple style with three stigmatic lobes or stigmas. The fruit 

 is a three- celled capsule, containing many seeds. This is a 

 very widely diffused plant, being scattered "over the higher 



* Polemonium coeruleum Plate 16 B. 



