500 THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 
integuments of the seeds, an embryo, slightly curved, in a horny 
albumen. The leaves are simple, opposite, and accompanied by 
two lateral stipules, which resemble the leaves sufficiently to make 
it appear that there are six verticilate leaves without stipules. 
Besides the Sherardia, there are several other species, such as the 
Woodruff (Asperula), the Bedstraws, or Scratchweeds ((Galium), 
the true Madder (Rubia), allcommon field plants. Rubia tinctorum 
is cultivated in the South of France, for the sake of its roots, which 
contain a colouring matter of a beautiful red, much used in dyeing. 
Coffee-tree (Coffea) is an important section of the Rubiacez. 
They are evergreen shrubs, having lanceolate, wavy, and smooth 
leaves, resembling those of the Laurel. They are opposite, and 
accompanied by two lateral stipules; the flowers are white an 
odorous, forming an agglomerate of flowers in the axil of the 
leaves ; the calyx is five-lobed; the corolla, funnel-shaped and also 
five-lobed ; stamens five, with an inferior bilocular ovarium like the 
Sherardia. The fruit, a red berry about the size of a cherry, con- 
sists of a thick and rather sweetish pulp, which encloses two nuts 
joined together, the walls of which are parchment-like. ‘Each of 
these nuts encloses a seed, convex on the exterior, smooth and 
hollowed, and furrowed in the interior. The embryo is short, 
straight, and smooth, at the base of a hard albumen, which consti- 
tutes nearly the whole of the seed. 
The Coffee-tree, which was brought originally from Abyssinia, 
was in the fifteenth century transported into Arabia, which has 
since become as a second home to this shrub, no coffee being 
equal to that produced in the neighbourhood of Mecca. a 
The Cephelis take rank next the Coffee-trees. They are small 
shrubs, natives of the solitary forests of Brazil. They are 
chiefly distinguished by the properties of their roots which yield 
ipecacuanha, a drug having bitter, acrid, and nauseous properties, 
but a valuable medicine; it is the produce of Cephelis ipecacu- 
anha and some other species. The drug in which the emetic 
properties of this plant reside is found in the bark of the roots. 
The CrncHonace” also belong to this group (Fig. 444). These 
are evergreen trees or shrubs which grow in the tropical Andes, — 
between ten degrees of north latitude and nineteen degrees south, 
at a height of from seven to eight hundred feet above the level of z 
