THE RLE TRIBE. 137 



a powerful, and usually a nauseous, odour, and their 

 leaves filled with transparent dots {Jig. 70' i^ conse- 

 quence of their secreting- an essential oil, which renders 

 them valuable in cases of spasms. 



Rue itself, Fraxinella^ covered with fragrant 

 glands, which are said to exhale their volatile parts in 

 such abundance in hot weather as to render the atmo- 

 sphere that surrounds it inflammable, and different 

 sorts of Diosma and Correa are those which are most 

 common in gardens. The remainder are principally 

 exotics, which are little knoAMi in cultivation. Rue 

 itself will give you a good idea of their general nature. 



It is a perennial, hairless, glaucous plant, having a 

 strong, peculiar, disagreeable odour. Its leaves are 

 unequally pinnated, rather fleshy, crenelled, and dotted 

 like those of an Orange. The flowers are greenish- 

 yellow, and grow in c}Tnes at the end of the branches. 

 The calyx (Plate XXXIX. '^.fig. 2.) consists of four 

 spreading, toothletted sepals. There are four petals, 

 TN-ith short claws, and a very concave toothletted end. 

 Eight spreading stamens arise from a fleshy ring sur- 

 rounding the ovary, and having about sixteen pits 

 impressed upon it, in a circle, a little above the origin 

 of the stamens {fig. 2.). Upon this ring is planted 

 a conical, four-lobed, uneven ovary, consisting of four 

 cells, which are not parallel, as 'usually is the case, 

 but spread away from each other at the base, around 

 a fleshy elevated centre (fig. 3. a.). Altogether the 

 mass of fleshy matter, upon which the cells of the 

 ovary are placed, is so considerable as to have in sys- 

 tematic Botany a particular name, that of gynobase. 



