17^^ LETTER XLIII. 



or whatever else its name may be, is a herbaceous plant, 

 usually growing- in hedges and dry ditches, where its long, 

 angular, brittle stems can readily find something to catch 

 hold of, so as to be supported a little above the earth. 

 The angles of its stem, the upper surface and edges of 

 its leaves, and its fruit, are closely beset with the hard, 

 stiff, hooked hairs, above referred to ; they catch hold 

 of the clothes of the passer-by, and adhere to him 

 like a bur, on which account the Greeks used to call 

 this plant the Philanthropist. The leaves are arranged 

 six, seven, or eight, in a whorl ; they are of a narrow 

 figure, somewhat broader towards the upper end, ter- 

 minate in a hard spiny point (Jig. 7- «•)' ^^^ ^^^® ^^ 

 stipules. The flowers grow from the bosoms of the 

 uppermost leaves of the branchlets, in the form of tiny, 

 white, four-rayed stars. The calyx is the slightest 

 little edge that you can imagine, placed on the top of 

 a small hairy ball, which is the ovary. The corolla 

 {fig. 1.) is valvate and monopetalous, but almost 

 divided into four parts, so slight is the degree of con- 

 nection between the petals. From the recesses of the 

 corolla spring four stamens {fig. 1. & 2.). The ovary 

 is a round, inferior, hairy ball, containing two cells, in 

 both of which is one ovule, rising up from a very 

 short stalk {fig. 2.) ; it is surmounted by two styles, 

 each bearing a single round stigma. On the out- 

 side of the styles, between them and the corolla, is 

 a green, fleshy, two-lobed disk {fig. 2. a.). The fruit 

 consists of a pair of kidney-shaped achsenia, or nuts, 

 bristly all over with stiff hooks, separated at the base 

 by the hardened and widened axis, and curving inwards 



