136 Introductory View of the 
size for paper-hangers and book-binders, and a cephalic snuff ; 
and the husks are employed in the tanning of leather. ‘The 
wood is not particularly valuable, but the bark is sometimes used 
in cases of fever. It is extraordinary that the many uses which 
exper iment has shown may be made of this tree, its easy cul- 
tivation, and remarkably quick growth, should not haye excited 
more attention in this speculating age, and that there should 
not have been a Joint-stock Alliterative Company for the manu- 
facture of starch, soap, size, snuff, and shoes. ‘The tree 
attains its full growth in about fifteen years from the first 
vegetation of the nut; its operations are, indeed, remark- 
ably active for so bulky a tree: naked, clumsy, and heavy as 
it looks during the winter, no sooner does the sun melt awa y 
the cement by which the scales are bound together than the 
tree starts immediately into leaf; and it is understood that 
the spring shoots complete their growth in the space of three 
weeks. 
I have spoken at some length of this tree, my dear reader ; 
for the class to which it belongs is so small, that were I not 
to linger a little over the plants which I mention, you might 
be likely to forget that I had spoken of the class at all. Let 
me observe, by the way, that there are three numbers with 
which botany is by no means familiar; seven, nine, and 
eleven. 
Another well known piant of this class and order is the 
Calla aethiopica, commonly called the arum. The fine white 
flower of this plant, so generally admired, is, as I have before 
observed, without the Carella ; what is commonly taken for 
such being the calyx; that species of calyx botanically termed 
a spatha. The column rising in the midst of it is styled a 
spadix, a name given to the receptacle of the flowers of palms, 
and extending to very few others. 
The genus Séptas, of the order Heptagynia, is a remark- 
able instance of the prevalence of the number seven, in 
which, as Rousseau observes, “ nature seems to take no 
delight.” It has seven stamens, seven pistils, a calyx of seven 
seg ments, a corolla of seven petals, and seven capsules. 
"The eighth class, Octdndria, compr ises many genera, very 
different in their general aspect: in some plants you may 
detect the class to which they belong at a glance; but in the 
octandrous plants the young botanist must have recourse to 
the Linnean characters before he can have any notion of their 
place in the artificial system, several natural families being 
ie e united. The student would not be led, by their extertial 
appearance, to suppose that the heath, the nasturtium, and 
the maple tree were included in the same class and order ; 
