34 LETTER XXVIII. 



flower, belong to the calyx and not to the corolla, 

 which is a most important difference. 



Many a plant belonging to the Milkw^ort tribe gTows 

 wild in the southern parts of Europe, and at the Cape 

 of Good Hope ; nor are species altogether wanting in 

 any quarter of the globe. The Cape kinds are, as I 

 have already told you, often cultivated in Greenhouses, 

 of which they are a great ornament. Generally these 

 plants are bitter ; but some of them abound to such a 

 degree in saponaceous properties as to be real vegetable 

 blanchisseuses. There is, in particular, a plant in Peru, 

 called Yallhoy (Monnina polystachya), an infusion of 

 whose bark is used by the ladies of that country for 

 washing their beautiful hair, and finer is that hair said 

 to be than any other in the world. This I am not so 

 unjust as to believe ; but the mere statement, with all 

 its exaggeration, suffices to shew that the plant in 

 question possesses properties of no common kind. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XXVIII. 



I. The PiTTOSPORUM Tribe. — 1. A tv/'ig o{ Sollya heterophylla, 

 or the various-leaved Solly a, in flower. — 2. A small cluster of its 

 fruit. — 3. A calyx magnitied, with the stamens converging in a cone 

 around the style ; a the sepals, b the anthers, c the style. — 4. A set of 

 the stamens curved back, and opened out ; a the pores by which the anthers 

 discharge their pollen. — 5. /\n ovary. — 6. The ovary cut across trans- 

 versely, exhibiting the ovules lying in the two cells, and the ten ridges 

 of hair that clothe the surface of the ovary. — 7. A longitudinal section 

 of a ripe fruit, shewing how the seeds are lodged in separate hollows, 

 produced by the growing up of the sides of the ovary.- — 8. A seed, 

 with its stalk or funiculus, a. — 9. A section of the .same, with the 



