ORDER MONOGYMA. 155 



You have already been made acquainted 

 with the lily, as it was one of the first flowers , 

 you were taught to analyze. Pliny says the 

 " lily is the next in nobility to the rose."* 

 Linnaeus called the liliaceous flowers "Nobles 

 of the vegetable kingdom ;" he also called the 

 palm-trees " Princes of India," and the 

 grasses Plebeians. 

 p. ^r,Q But in our republican country, where aris- 

 iD- " ' tocratic distinctions among men are discard- 

 ed, we will not attempt to introduce orders of nobility among the 

 plants. In the lily, which has 6 stamens, there are 6 petals ; 3 of 

 these are exterior, 3 interior ; the capsule is 3-sided, with 3 cells, and 

 3 valves ; the seeds are arranged in 6 rows. This proportion of 

 numbers seems to forbid the idea that this plant was produced with- 

 out the agency of a designing mind. We are not always, however, 

 to expect the same symmetry in plants, as has been here remarked. 

 It is in the natural, as in the moral world, that, although we see 

 around us such proofs of order and system, as manifest the superin- 

 .ending care of one Almighty Being, yet we meet with irregulari- 

 ties which we cannot comprehend ; but, although we may admire the 

 order, we are not to say that even what seems disorder, is formed 

 vvithout a plan. 



" Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce 

 His works unwise, of which the smallest part 

 Exceeds the narrow visions of his mind 7' 



The tulip has no style, but its three-parted stigma is attached to a 

 three-cornered germ. .The corolla of the tulip is more expanded at 

 the base than that of the lily. The stem of the tulip is never more 

 than one-flowered, while that of the Uly usually has a number of 

 flowers. In no plant is the variation made by culture, greater than 

 in the tulip ; it is said, that of one single species, (Tulipa gesneriana,) 

 eleven hundred varieties are cultivated in Holland. About the mid- 

 dle of the seventeenth century, the rage for tulips was so great that 

 some were sold for four thousand dollars, and one variety, called the 

 Viceroi, for ten thousand dollars ; but this extraordinary traflic was 

 checked by a law, that no tulip or other flower should be sold for a 

 sum exceeding one hundred and seventy-five dollars. The amateurs 

 of this flower may truly be said to have had the tulip'mania, to have 

 rendered such a law necessary. The Crown-imperialf is a majestic 

 flower, and presents, in the regularity of its parts, the curious ap- 

 pearance of its nectaries, and the hquid secretion which takes place 

 in them, facts of great interest both in the departments of botanical 

 classification and physiology. But we find in the fetid odour of this 

 splendid flower, a circumstance which leads us to prefer, as an or- 

 nament for our parlours, or as a gift to a friend, the humble mignio- 

 nette, or the lowly violet. 



* " Lilium nobiUtate proximum est." A French poet, in the following lines, givea 

 the lily a rank above the rose. 



" Noble fils du soleil, le lys majestmx. 



Vers I'astre paternal dont il brave les feux 



E16ve avec orgueil sa tele souveraine ; 



II est roi des tleurs, la rosa est la reine." 

 t This plant is represented at Plate vii. Fig. 4, of the Appendix ; the Yucca aloifo- 

 lia, which belongs to the same natural family, is represented at Plate ii. Fig. 1. The 

 Narcissus is represented at Plate vii. Fig. 7. The Agave, of the Narcissi family, is 

 represented at Plate vii. Fig. 2. The Pine-apple, belonging to this class and order, ia 

 represented at Plate v. Fig. 3. 



What is said of the lily 1— Tulip— Tulip mania— Crown-imperial. 



