THE UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE. 35 



take for umbelliferous, if vou will only attend to 

 the exact nature of the characters I have already 

 explained. Nevertheless, as it is exceedingly diffi- 

 cult for beginners to comprehend the necessity of 

 exactness in natural history, and as you have already 

 been puzzled about the Strawberry and the Crowfoot, 

 I may as well caution you against an error which 

 you may fall into ; and I cannot do better than point 

 it out in the Avords of Rousseau himself. " If you 

 should happen, after reading my letter, to walk out 

 and find an Elder-bush in flower, I am almost sure 

 that at first sight vou would exclaim ; here we have 

 an umbelliferous plant. You would find a large 

 umbel, a small umbel, little white blossoms, an in- 

 ferior ovary, and five stamens ; yes, it must be an 

 umbelliferous plant. But let us look again ; suppose 

 I take a flower. In the first place, instead of five 

 petals, I find a corolla, with five divisions, it is true, 

 but nevertheless with all five joined into one piece ; 

 now flowers of umbelliferous plants are not so con- 

 structed. Here indeed are five stamens, but I see no 

 stvles : I see three stiofmas more often than two ; 

 and three grains more often than two ; but umbel- 

 liferous plants have never either more or less than 

 two stigmas, nor more nor less than two grains to 

 each flower. Besides, the fruit of the Elder is a 

 juicy berry, while that of umbelliferous plants is dry 

 and hard. The Elder, therefore, is not an umbel- 

 liferous plant. If you now go back a little, and look 

 more attentively at the way in which the flowers 



are disposed, you will also find their arrangement 



D 2 



