THE EVENING PRIMROSE TRIBE. 49 



The fruit is a dry oval case, with four angles, 

 opening mio four pieces, called valves {fig. 6.). 



Thus, you see all the parts of this plant, from its 

 calyx to its fruit, consist either of four, or twice four 

 parts ; the like happens in all the genuine species of 

 the same natural order ; by which character they are 

 easily known. There are many plants of very diffe- 

 rent orders, that have four sepals, or four petals, or 

 some of their other parts of that number ; but it is 

 only in the Evening Primrose tribe that all the parts 

 are in fours at the same time ; or some multiple of 

 four, which is botanically the same thing. 



There are no Evening Primroses, really wild, in 

 Great Britain, however frequent they may be in gar- 

 dens. But there is an exccedinoly common wild flower, 

 called Willow-herb (Epilobium), one of the species 

 of which, called the " gi'eat hairy," is, perhaps, the 

 most noble of all our British herbs. Its stout shaggy 

 stems grow five or six feet high, and are terminated 

 by long clusters of bright red flowers. If you were 

 to compare it with the description of the Evening 

 Primrose, you would think it really must be a 

 species of that genus, only the flowers are not yellow. 

 This, how^ever, is not the only difiference. When the 

 fruit of the Willow-herb is ripe, it sheds seeds which 

 are furnished with a curious apparatus to enable 

 them to fly about, and spread themselves over the 

 land ; each of them has a very long tuft of silk at one 

 end, which is so light, that the smallest breeze is 

 sufficient to buoy it up, and raise it aloft into the air, 

 there to be caught and carried to a great distance. 



£ 



