86 



always so, as the upper one is often four or even five-cleft. 

 The two lower petals entire. Capsule broad, three pointed. 

 Nectary large, green, on the upper part of the flower. 



No plant is used so much as this in dyeing yellow, for the 

 color it yields is very bright and beautiful : it is therefore often 

 cultivated for this purpose. " It thrives/' says the author of 

 The Journal of a Naturalist, " in all our abandoned stone 

 quarries, upon the rejected rubbish of the lime kiln, and waste 

 places of the roads, unmindful of frost or of drought, it pre- 

 serves a degree of verdure when nearly all other vegetation is 

 seared up by these extremes in exposed situations." The dyers 

 use the whole plant ; it does not undergo any other process 

 than being pulled up at the proper season, and tied into bundles. 

 When wanted for use it is merely boiled, (not in iron vessels,) 

 with alum, and the goods, which maybe either cotton, woollen, 

 silk, or linen, dipped into the liquor. Blue cloths, &c., dipped 

 in it become green. 



WILD MIGNIONETTE. Reseda lutea. 



Plate 6, fig. 14. 

 Leaves deeply cleft, waved. Calyx six-cleft. 



Not quite so common as the former, nor growing so high ? 

 but in similar situations. They have many points of difference r 

 as in this the leaves are very deeply cleft or pinnatifid, with 

 waved edges. The spike of flowers is broader and shorter, and 

 of a deeper yellow. Calyx six-cleft. Petals six the two upper 

 ones curiously three-cleft ; the side petals in two large divisions 

 and one very small one ; the under petals not cleft, but con- 

 tracted and toothed in the middle. The capsule is much 

 wrinkled, and with three blunt points. The plant, which much 

 resembles the garden Mignionette, has no scent. There is 

 scarcely any tribe of plants so difficult to understand and 

 describe properly as this is, because the different species vary 

 so much in the number and the structure of their parts. The 

 capsule is always open, and the petals deeply cleft, and these 

 are the only permanent marks of the genus. 



O. S. Shrubby White Mignionette, which has a five-cleft calyx and five 

 trifid petals, very rare in a wild state The sweet Mignionette, (Reseda 



