g6 TILIACE^ 



hue, and the stems put on a ragged appearance. Children gather 

 and eat the unripe seed-vessels, which they call " cheeses " : they 

 are insipid, but not unwholesome. The pollen is a beautiful 

 object for the microscope, being studded with minute prickles, 

 which cause it to adhere to the hair)? legs of bees visiting the 

 flowers. The crimson veins on the petals serve the insects as 

 " honey-guides " ; the stamens ripen and discharge their pollen 

 before the circle of styles mature their stigmas, and subsequently 

 these styles bend over so that the stigmas can collect pollen, 

 brought from other flowers by insects, off the withered recur\-ed 

 filaments. 



3. M. rotiiiidifulla (Dwarf JMallow). — A smaller prostrate 

 species ; leaves roundish, heart-shaped, with 5 shallow lobes ; 

 Jlowers less than an inch across, pale pink, without honey-guides ; 

 fruit downy. — Waste places, common.. Its flowers are seldom 

 visited by insects, and mature their anthers and stigmas simul- 

 taneously. — Fl. June — September. Perennial. 



*J/. verluilhilu, an erect species with petals not longer than its 

 sepals ; M. piisUIa, a prostrate annual form resembling J/, rotioi- 

 difblia, but with shorter /f/aA / and *")/. parviflora, a branched 

 form with acutely-Iobed lem'es and short,/('A7/.f, occur occasionally, 

 but are not nidigcnous. 



Ori>. XVHI. TiLiACE/E. — The Linden Family 



A considerable family, mostly tropical, of trees, shrubs, and, 

 rarely, herbs ; leai'es scattered, stipulate ; fltuvers cymose, poly- 

 symmetric ; sepali 5, rarely 4, vahirte when in bud ; petals 

 equalling the sepals ui number, often wolh a scale and pit at their 

 base, sometimes wanting ; staiiiens numerous ; earpels 2 — 10, 

 syncarpous ; style single ; stlg/iias and chambers oi oi'ary as many as 

 carpels ; fi-nit dry or baccate, with one or more seeds in each 

 chamber. They all have a mucilaginous, wholesome juice, and 

 many of tliem are remarkable for the loughness of their fibrous 

 inner bark. lute, for example, is the product of the East Indian 

 genus Coreliams, and Russian bast is olitained from tlie Linden 

 {Til la). 



I. TiLiA (Linden). — Trees with obliq'ue, cordate, serrate lea^ves : 

 eyines with a large leafy bract adherent to the peduncle ; sepals 

 5, deciduous ; petals 5 ; sfa/iieiis many ; ova/y 5-chambered, 

 eapsiile r-chambered, indehiscent, 1^ — 2-seeded. (Name, the 

 Latin name of the tree. The English name, now generally written 

 Lime, was Line in .Shakespere's tiiiie.) A peculiar interest 

 attaches to the Linden from its ha\-hig given a name to the 



