BOBAGO OFFICINALIS-BOBAGE- 



CLASS, PENTANDRIA J ORDER, MONOGYNIA. 

 NATURAL ORDER, BORAGINACE^E. 



GEN. CHAR. Corolla rotate, throat closed with rays. SPEC. 

 CHAR. All the leaves alternate. Calyx spreading. 



More than one fourth of the vegetable kingdom produces flow- 

 ers with five stamens ; and although part of them belong to another 

 class on account of their union at the base, yet enough remains to 

 make this the largest by far of all the Linnasan classes. It presents 

 withal a good example of the imperfection of this useful and cele- 

 brated system. We have in it side by side, useful medicines, 

 nutritious vegetables and deadly poisons ; the small herb and the 

 large tree ; and scents and colors equally diversified. The potato 

 and stramonium ; the egg plant and tobacco ; coffee and henbane ; 

 mandrake and currants, peruvian bark, elm, gentian, carrot, &c., 

 &c., all rank in one class together. 



Our species, the Borage, is the type, and gives the name to the 

 natural order, which comprises herbs and shrubby plants, with 

 round stems and alternate rough leaves ; the flowers often in one 

 sided clusters, which are spiral before expansion. The flower cups 

 have five permanent leaves, more or less united at the base regu- 

 larly ; the blossoms are regular, the limb often five lobed, with 

 a row of scales in the throat. Stamens as many as the lobes of 

 the blossom., ancj alternate with them. They are all innocent mu- 



