ILLUSTRATIONS. Ill 



style, and a two-celled ovary with two ovules in each cell. 

 The longitudinal ribs in the leaves of these plants are pecu- 

 liar, and have procured the name of Ribwort for one of the 

 species. 



Of the irregular- flowered perigynous Monopetals we find an 

 illustration in the Scrophulariaceous family, here represented 

 by the Purple Foxglove,* a flower commonly met with on dry 

 hilly wastes, by the forest side, and along the banks of sandy 

 lanes. In situations such as these, "the Foxglove rears its 

 pyramid of bells, gloriously freckled." The plant is a bien- 

 nial, that is to say, it springs up and forms a tuft of leaves one 

 season, and shoots up its flowering stem the following year, 

 and then perishes. The leaves which are produced in the first 

 year are rather large long-stalked coarsely- veined and downy, 

 of an ovate or ovate-lanceolate figure, and from their midst 

 springs the erect flowering-stem of from two to four feet high, 

 having a few shortly-stalked leaves on the lower part, and ter- 

 minating in a long, stately, pyramidal, one-sided raceme of 

 purple flowers, which are hairy and beautifully spotted inside. 

 These have a calyx of five unequal segments, and an oblique 

 tubular corolla an inch and a half long, contracted above the 

 base and then much inflated, the mouth oblique and having 

 five lobes, of which four are short and the remaining lower one 

 is about twice the length of the others. The stamens are four 

 in number, didynamous, that is, ranging in two pairs, one pair 

 being longer than the other. There is a simple style with a 

 two -cleft stigma; and a two-celled ovary becoming a capsule, 

 containing numerous seeds. The Purple Foxglove is one of 

 the most beautiful of our wild-flowers. 



Near to the Scrophulariaceous plants rank those of the 

 Orobanchaceous family, represented by the Lesser Broom- 



* Digitalis purpurea Plate 17 A. 



