v.] SOLANACE^E, OROBANCHACE^E. 141 



mature at the same time ; but as the former project 

 above the latter, they are necessarily touched first. 

 If the visits of insects be too long deferred, the 

 flower fertilises itself. C. arvensis closes in wet 

 weather and at night. 



C. sepium, on the contrary, remains open during 

 rain, but closes at night, unless there be a moon, 

 when it remains expanded. It has no smell, and is 

 perhaps, on that account, in spite of its large size, 

 comparatively little visited by insects. 



SOLANACE^:. 



The British genera are the following : Hyoscyamus (the Henbane), 

 Solanum (the Nightshade), and Atropa. Datura is sometimes found 

 growing wild, but it is not a true native. 



Solanum secretes no honey, and is little visited by insects. Hyos- 

 cyamus, on the contrary, is melliferous, and cross -fertilisation is favoured 

 by the projection of the stigma beyond the anthers. 



OROBANCHACE^E. 



A curious family, with simple or rarely- branched stems, and scales 

 instead of leaves. The species are either brown or purplish, but never 

 green, and are parasitical on the roots of other plants. There are two 

 British genera : Orobanche (Broomrape) and Lathraea ; both are para- 

 sitic. In Lathraea the scale-like leaves are hollowed out, the inner 

 surfaces being provided with peculiar structures of two kinds ; both 

 consist of three cells, two of which are spherical, and situated on the 

 third, which in the one sort is cylindrical, so that they resemble gland- 

 ular hairs ; in the second sort the basal cell is flattened. These organs 

 have been described as possessing the power of throwing out proto- 

 plasmic extensions, which have been supposed to extract nourishment 

 from small insects which are captured in the hollows, but this has not 

 yet been confirmed. 



SCROPHULARIACE^E. 



This is a large family, consisting of fourteen genera, 

 and contains : Veronica (Fig. 97), Verbascum (Mullein), 

 (Fig. 98), Linaria, Antirrhinum (Snapdragon), Scro- 

 phularia (Fig. 99), Digitalis (Foxglove), (Fig. 100), 

 Euphrasia (Eyebright), (Fig. 106), Rhinanthus 

 (Rattle), &c. 



