404 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
Exogenous trees or shrubs, often spiny, with regular symmetrical 
echt small axillary, = often oo axile placente; stamens alter- 
with the petals ; ndulous, and corolla valvate. A small CLXIT: Olacacee. 
ieee of ric pros ae “Africa. Atal and India, one only of the 
West Indies, a few of the Cape of G Hope. 
ce eee 3, with persistent nonstipulate leaves, with regular 
symmetrical vipa ng racemes ; — placenta ; stamens alternate, with F 
the petals equal to them; pendulous ovules; and imbricated corolla. CLXIIL. Cyrillacee. 
They are natives of N orth America, with no known useful properti 
The Brrserip orders do not at first glance present a very 
obvious or natural arrangement of their respective families. 
The union of Vines, Fumitories, and Berberis seem at first glance 
to be paradoxical. But botanists find in their structural anatomy 
resemblances which are not obvious to the uninitiated. The 
group is characterised by unsymmetrical flowers, a definite 
number of stamens, a minute embryo enclosed in a hard horny 
albumen ; but even these characteristics fail in the typical genus 
Berberis, whose embryo is much larger; but then the long radicle 
and small cotyledons proclaim a relationship. 
Among these plants we have the Drosrraces, so called from 
éposoc, “dew,” an order of delicate herbaceous plants, chiefly marsh 
herbs of the south of Europe, and ranging up to the tropics; 
some of them, as Dionea muscipula, distinguished by the irritability 
of the leaves when touched by a passing insect, which close upon 
it suddenly and hold ita fast prisoner. The leaves of the order 
are usually covered with glands or glandular hairs, the flowers 
arranged in circinate racemes. Calyx consisting of five sepals ;— 
there are five petals, and five to ten stamens ; fruit capsular, one- 
and many minute seeds, having an mbes lying at the 
base, of abundant albumen. The Sundews, as they are sometimes 
called, are more remarkable for their singular red-coloured glan- 
dular hairs, which discharge a viscid acrid fluid in which i 
are caught; than the beauty of their flowers. The British species 
of the order, which flower about midsummer, are the Grass of 
Parnassus (Parnassia palustris)—growing in boggy places; its large 
white petals slightly veined,—and three species of Drosera, “es 
tinguished by their terminal racemose flowers on scapes, and 
Sous reddish glandular viscid hairs. Several of the foreign fee 
have the reputation of being poisonous—D. communis to sheep and 
cattle. D. lunata has the viscid leaves and glandular fringes which 
close upon insects happening to touch them, and is said to yield a 
