ORDER MONOGYNIA, 149 



corolla spotted with a rich, yellow colour, which Snakspeare seemed 

 to suppose contained the fragrance of the flower. Thus in the 

 " Midsunnner Night's Dream," the Fairy says, 



" I serve the fairy queen, 



To dew her orbs upon the green : . 



The coicslips tall, ner pensioners be; 



In their gold coats spots you see ; 



Those be rubies, fairy favours, 



In those freckles live their savours : 



I must go seek some dew-drops here, 



And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear." 



The American cowslip belongs to the genus Caltha, of the class 

 Polyandria. 



Miscellaneous Examples of Plants in this Class and Order. 

 The coffee-plant (Coffea arabica) is in this class and order. This 

 is a native of Arabia; it is used to a great extent by the Turks and 

 Arabs, to counteract the narcotic effects of opium, which they use in 

 large quantities. It is remarked by a physician, that the question is 

 often asked, which is the least detrimental to health, tea or coffee ; 

 he says, " The Turks, who drink great quantities of coffee, and the 

 Chinese, who make equally as free use of tea, do not exhibit such 

 peculiar effects as render it easy to decide, whether they are, in 

 reality, deleterious to the human system." 



The trumpet-honeysuckle (Lonicera) belongs to this part of the 

 artificial system, (Fig, 127, b ;) it has a very minute, five-cleft calyx, 

 which is superior, or above the germ : the corolla is of one petal, 

 and tubular^ the tube is oblong; the limb of the corolla is deeply 

 divided into live revolute segments, one of which seems separated 

 from the others ; the filaments are exserted ; the anthers are oblong. 



Before closing our remarks upon this order, we will remind you 

 that the wine-grape is found here. The general characters of the 

 grape (Vitis) are a calyx five-toothed; petals adhering at the top ; a 

 round five-seeded pericarp. The stamens and pistils are, in some 

 species, dioecious, or on separate plants ; this, according to our 

 principles of classification, would carry the genus into the class 

 Dioecia ; but as some species have perfect flowers containing five 

 stamens, and one pistil, and as it is never permitted to place in dif- 

 ferent classes the different species of a genus, we take the dioecious 

 ones, which are less numerous than the pentandrous, into the fifth 

 class. 



The regions which produce the wine-grape have a mean annual 

 temperature* of 50° on the northern border, and 59° on the southern. 

 Lines of temperature have been fixed by Humboldt, by remarking 

 the peculiar vegetables in different latitudes. He has traced the 

 northern limit of the wine-grape, where the mean annual tempera- 

 ture is about 50", across the United States to the Pacific Ocean; not, 

 however, in a straight Une, for climate, although chiefly dependant 

 on latitude, is yet much modified by other circumstances ; and on 



* By mean annual temperature is meant a medium between the extremes of heat 

 and cold. In a climate where the thermometer in summer would rise to 100 degrees, 

 and in winter sink to zero or 0, the medium would be 50 degrees : this is probably not 

 far from the mean annual temperature of our climate. The mean annual temperature 

 at the equator is reckoned to be about 84 degrees. 



Coffee— Trumpet-honeysuckle— What are the general characters of the grape ge- 

 nus ?— Temperature of the regions which produce the wine-grape— What do you un 

 derstand by mean annual temperature 7 {see no^e)— Within what degrees of mean an- 

 nual temperature is the v/ine-grape produced?— What is the natural Umit of the wine- 

 grape? 



13* 



