LETTER XLV. 



THE BIRTH WORT TRIBE THE ARUM TRIBE. 



(Plate XLVI.) 



Did you ever remark a broad, round-leaved, twin- 

 ing plant, near the entrance to the flower garden, on 

 the right hand, next the little rock-work for Sedums, 

 with ding\-, brownish, lead-coloured flowers, bent 

 almost double in the middle, and only to be disco- 

 vered by a careful search among the leaves ? It is a 

 plant called Aristolochia Sipho, or, in English, the 

 Stphon-flowered Birthwort, and belongs to the same 

 natural order as the Wild American Ginger (Asarum 

 canadense), that little, round-leaved, stemless plant, 

 which forms two or three clusters among the Azaleas, 

 in front of the library window, and whose cup-shaped 

 bro^\'n flowers I remember shewing you, as carefully 

 hidden among the leaves as if they had been, what 

 they really look like, the nests of some fairy bird. 

 These plants are all of them excessively curious, be- 

 cause of the strange form of their flowers ; most of 

 which are sint^ularlv mottled or veined with brown or 

 purple, and some of which are quite gigantic in their 

 dimensions. Humboldt saw the children of an Indian 

 village, wearing the helmet-shaped flowers of one 



