90 TILIACE^. 



a statement in Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany for 

 January, 1849, " the use of this fibre was unknown in Europe, but now it 

 is imported into Great Britain to the pecuniary amount of 300,000 pounds 

 sterling- annually." 



The Lindens form an ample and compact head of handsome foliage, and 

 are therefore much prized as shade-trees. The charcoal of the wood is used 

 in making gunpowder. It is said that a little supar may be obtained from 

 the vernal sap ; and the fragrant flowers yield the finest honey. 



This order is at once distinguished from the Mallow Family by its decidu- 

 ous calyx, its distinct or at least scarcely monadelphous stamens, which 

 are inserted on a manifest hypogynous torus, and by the two-celled an- 

 thers; from Byttneriaceae by their indefinite and not monadelphous sta- 

 mens. The petals in Tilia are sometimes quincuncially imbricated in aestiva- 

 tion, as represented in Plate 136, Fig. 1 ; but in the same species they are 

 as frequently convolute, except that the first petal is entirely exterior, and oc- 

 casionally the fifth is wholly interior. It may be remarked, as a general 

 rule, that the aestivation of the corolla does not furnish such constant charac- 

 ters as that of the calyx. 



The embryo of Tilia differs from that of Malvaceae in having the cotyle- 

 dons revolute, or rolled together in the direction averse from the hilum. 



Recurring to what has been stated as to the position and origin of the 

 stamens in the two preceding orders, it will appear evident from the diagram 

 in Plate 136, Fig. 1, that, in the American Lindens, the petaloid scales or 

 staminodia, with the adherent cluster of stamens, originate from the dedu- 

 plication of the petals before which they respectively stand. 



