viii FAMILIAR GARDEN FLOWERS. 
form a sheath round the stem. The flowers vary much in their disposition, 
having sometimes a whorl of three leaves close to them or at some distance 
below. The calyx consists of three to six pieces; the corolla contains petals 
that have a distinct numerical relation to the leaves of the calyx, being equal, 
double or triple. Thus the buttercups have usually a calyx of five leaves 
and a corolla of five petals; but the pilewort, or lesser celandiue, has usually 
three sepals and nine petals; while the peony has five sepals and five to ten 
petals. The stamens are generally numerous, distinct, and situated under 
the ovary. The carpels, or seed-vessels, are sometimes one-seeded and 
collected in a head or capitule; or many-seeded and combined in a whorl ; 
or are compressed so as to form amany-celled pistil. All the ranunculaceous 
plants have watery juices, and are more or less acrid and poisonous, and the 
roots are often more decidedly poisonous than the stems and leaves. But the 
poisonous principle is destroyed by boiling or drying ; hence some of these 
plants are used for food when cooked, and the poisonous crowfoots of our 
meadows, which are never touched by cattle, become wholesome fodder when 
dried in the form of hay. The aconite may be distinguished from all other 
members of the ranunculus family by the fact that the large uppermost 
segment of its calyx overhangs the petals and other parts in the form of a 
helmet. p.d. 
PETUNIA, from petwn, the Brazilian name for tobacco. N.O., 
Solanacee, LINNBAN: 5, Pentandria ; 1, Monogynia.—This order is com- 
posed of herbs or shrubs, rarely of arborescent plants, with colourless juices, 
round or irregularly angled stems or branches, sometimes armed with thorns 
or prickles; their leaves alternate, simple, entire, or lobed; the inflorescence 
is variable, mostly axillary, sometimes terminal; the flowers regular and 
united ; the calyx is five-parted, persistent ; corolla monopetalous, five-cleft 
or four-cleft, regular, deciduous; stamens inserted upon the corolla, as many 
as the segments of the limb, and alternate with them; ovary two or four- 
celled, stigma simple ; fruit either a capsule or a berry ; seeds numerous. A 
large and somewhat anomalous order, comprehending many useful and many 
noxious plants, as, for example, the potato, tomato, nightshade, egg-plant, 
capsicum, henbane, and tobacco. Between the flower of the potato and that 
of the petunia what a difference, and yet we are to regard them as somewhat 
nearly related ! ped 
LILIUM, from /eirion, or from the Celtic /i, white. N.O., Liliacee. 
Linnman: 6, Hevandria; 1, Monogynia.—The lilyworts are endogenous 
plants widely scattered over the globe, and comprehending the draczenas, 
yuccas, aloes, and asparagus, as well as the true lilies, which for the most 
part produce fleshy bulbs of annual duration. The leaves are always simple 
and undivided, and usually have the veins running straight from the base to 
the apex, but in some dracienas they diverge from the midrib to the margin. 
The flower consists of six perianth pieces, six stamens with anthers opening 
inwards, and a superior three-celled ovary changing to a three-celled fruit. 
