SYNOPSIS. 



SPANISH IBIS.— This iris (I. xiphium) and the English iris 

 (J. xiphioides) are so nearly alike that there can he no impropriety in 

 regarding them as forms of one and the same species. They "both helong to 

 South-western Europe, where we meet with another differing immensely in 

 character, the great Iris Iberica, a species lately introduced and now much 

 sought after hy collectors of hardy plants. The iris family afford the student 

 a ready opportunity of ohserving some of the more prominent characters of 

 monocotyledons in which the flowers are fashioned on a model greatly differ- 

 ing from those of dicotyledons. The former have no distinct calyx and 

 corolla, hut in the latter these are usually conspicuous and afford useful 

 characters in the determination of species. As a, garden plant the Spanish 

 iris represents the hulbous-rooted section of iris, as the German iris repre- 

 sents the rhizomatous section. The hulbous species have flat or incurved 

 leaves, hut the fleshy, fibrous -rooted kinds have ensiform or "flag " leaves. 

 See under " Aconitnm." p. I. 



EBYNGITJM, from a name adapted hy Pliny. N.O., Apiaeets, or 

 TJmbellifers. Linnjean: 5, Pentandria ; 2, Dir/i/nia.— Between an eryngo 

 and a, parsley or hemlock, what a difference ! It seems to the casual eye 

 impossible that plants so apparently dissimilar can he so closely related. 

 But as happens again and again, the gradations are of the most gentle kind 

 in the several modifications, and thus the extreme forms are brought into 

 harmony by the several links that unite them. The. plants are herbaceous, 

 the leaves divided, the flowers in umbels. Eryngium is an extreme form of 

 an umbellifer ; the inflorescence needs but to be carefully examined to reveal 

 its relationships. P- ''• 



CENTATJREA, a classical name commemorating the curing of a 

 wound in the foot of Chiron, the centaur, by the juice of the plant. X.O., 

 AsUracece. LraraiAN: 19, Syngenesis ; 3, Frustranea. p. 9- 



