164 CLASS DICANDRIA. 



resembling a tobacco pipe. The stems are scaly, but without leaves ', 

 the whole plant is perfectly white, and looks as if made of wax; it 

 is sometimes called Indian-pipe. You must look for this in shady 

 woods near the roots of old trees, in June or July. 



Rhododendron, or, as it is sometimes called, mountain laurel or 

 ose-bay, an evergreen with large and beautiful oval leaves, is found 

 rowing on the sides of mountains, or in wet swamps of cedar ; it 

 ourishes beneath the shade of trees ; the pink and white flowers 

 appear in large showy clusters, and continue in bloom for a long 

 period ; they have a 5-toothed calyx, a 5-cleft, funnel-form, some- 

 what irregular corolla, stamens 10, sometimes half the number, cap- 

 sule 5-celled, 5-valved. At Fig. 134, c, is a flower of the genus Ledum, 

 which is found in the same family as the Rhododendron ; it has a 

 very small calyx, and a flat, five-parted corolla. 



Connected by natural relations to the two genera above mention- 

 ed, is the American laurel, (Kalinia,) a splendid shrub, sometimes 

 found ten or thirteen feet high. On the Catskill mountains, it is said 

 to have been seen twenty feet in height ; the flowers grow in that 

 kind of cluster called a corymb ; they are either white or red ; but 

 this fair and beautiful shrub is of a poisonous nature, particularly 

 fatal to sheep who are attracted towards it ; one species of the 

 Kalmia is on this account called sheep-laurel. 



Among the plants which have a place in this part of the artificial 

 system, is the DioNiEA vmscipula*, or Venus' fly-trap. This is a 

 native of North CaroUna; the leaves spring from the roots ; each 

 leaf has, at its extremity, a kind of appendage like a small leaf 

 doubled; this is bordered on its edges by glands resembling hairs, 

 and containing a liquid that attracts insects ; but no sooner does the 

 unfortunate insect alight upon the leaf, than with a sudden spring, 

 it closes, and the little prisoner is crushed to death in the midst oi 

 the sweets it had imprudently attempted to seize; after the insect, 

 overcome by the closeness of the grasp, has expired, the leaf again 

 unfolds itself Although we may account for this phenomenon b'' 

 attributing it to the irritability of the plant, we have only r«novei 

 the difficulty by adducing a cause which itself remains to be ex- 

 plained. We shall in a future lecture make some remarks upon the 

 irritability, or, as it is sometimes called, sensibility of plants. 



Order Dlgynia. 



This order contains the Hydrangea, an elegant East Indian exo- 

 tic ; a species of this plant, a shrub with white floM'ers, is said to have 

 been found on the banks of the Schuylkill river. 



The Pink tribe, of the natural order Caryophyllece, is composed of 

 plants belonging to this class, some of which have three styles, others 

 have five, but the greater part have two, and therefore belong to the 

 2d order. The exotic genus Dianthus, containing the carnation, and 

 other garden-pinks, and sweet-william, is a great favourite with flo- 

 rists, who gravely tell us what varieties we ought most to admire ; as 

 if fashion, and not nature, were to regulate our emotions. The seed 

 of the carnation often produces a ditterent kind of flower from its 

 parent. A writer on the culture of flowers, observes, that a florist 

 may consider himself fortunate, if, in the course of his life, he should 

 be able to raise six superior carnations ; — but the hope that such 

 success may crown his labours, bethinks a sufficient stimulus to con- 

 tinued exertions. Such contracted views of nature and of the pur- 



♦ See Appendix, Plate iii. Fig. o. 



Mountain-laurel— -Kalmia, or sheep-laurel — Dionaea — Pink tribe. 



