897 



Cfje Ercatfurg of 3Botang. 



[pisu 



very different in appearance ; indeed, its 

 commonWest Indian name, Water Lettuce, 

 is much more expressive of its general re- 

 semblance. Like duckweed, it propagates 

 itself with great rapidity, and frequently 

 completely covers tropical ponds and water- 

 tanks with a coating of verdure, keeping 

 the water beneath fresh and cool. It floats 

 on the water, and sends down a quantity of 

 long feather}' roots, which do not always 

 reach the bottom. The plant consists of a 

 rose-shaped tuft of wedge-shaped slightly 

 concave notched or round-topped leaves, 

 two to Ave inches long, of a delicate pale 

 pea-green, covered with fine hairs. Each 

 plant sends out several runners, and upon 

 the ends of these other similar plants are 

 formed, which, again, send out runners, 

 until in a short time the surface of the 

 water is covered. Its flowers are very 

 small, and borne in little spathes at the 

 base of the leaves, each spathe containing 

 one male and one female flower attached 

 to an adnate spadix. The former occupies 

 the upper part, just within the mouth of 

 I the spathe, and consists of three to eight 

 four-celled anthers adnate to a short co- 

 I lumn seated in a cup-shaped disk ; while 

 | the latter is nearly concealed within the 

 ; spathe, beneath the male, from which it is 

 ! separated by a scale-like appendage, and 

 I consists of a single one-celled ovary ter- 

 I minated by a thick style and cup-shaped 

 stigma, and containing numerous ovules 

 along its inner face. [A. S.] 



PISTIL. The female part of a flower, 

 consisting of ovary, style, stigma, and 

 ovules. 



PISTILLARY CORD. A channel which 

 passes from the stigma through the style 

 into the ovary. 



PISTILLIDIA. Young spore-cases , the 



archegoniajn ferns; organs in the muscal 



alliance, which have the appearance of 



pistils. 



PISTILLIGEROTJS. Bearing a pistil. 



PISTOLOCHIA. Aristolochia Pistolochia. 



PISTORIXIA hispanica is the only re- 

 presentative of a genus of Crassulacece 

 inhabiting Spain and the Barbary coast of 

 the Mediterranean. It is an erect annual 

 or biennial herb, ^vith nearly terete oblong 

 and sessile leaves, and pinkish flowers ar- 

 ranged in umbels. The calyx is five-cleft, 

 the corolla monopetalous, hypocrateriform, 

 with its border divided into five lobes ; and 

 there are ten stamens, five scales, and five 

 carpels. [B. S.] 



PISOI. A genus of Leguminosce of the 

 tribe Yiciece, distinguished by its triangu- 

 lar style keeled above, subfalcate and ge- 

 niculate at the base. Three species have 

 : been referred to it, but they may all be 

 reduced to the one grown for culinary pur- 

 1 poses. It is, however, scarcely sufficiently 

 ! distinct from Lathyrvs. 

 \ The Common Pea, P. sativum, is a hardy 

 i annual of the greatest antiquity, and one 

 i of the most valuable of cultivated legumes. 



Its native country is unknown, but is gene- 

 rally understood to be the south of Europe, 

 from whence it is supposed to have been 

 introduced into this country, by way of 

 Holland or France, about the time of Henry 

 VIII. During the long period it has been 

 in cultivation numerous varieties have 

 been produced, some of which seldom ex- 

 ceed a foot in height; while others, if allow- 

 ed to attach themselves to stakes by their 

 tendrils, will climb as high as eight feet or 

 more. The whole plant is covered with a 

 delicate glaucous bloom. The stem is 

 round, furnished with numerous alternate 

 compound leaves, the leaflets of which are 

 roundish oval entire, and of a rich deep 

 green, often marked with blotches of a 

 paler colour. At the base of the footstalk 

 each leaf has a pair of stipules, which re- 

 semble the leaflets but are much larger, 

 rounded below, and have small convex 

 teeth ; while the extremity of the footstalk 

 is terminated by a small round branching 

 tendril, which claspsf or support round any- 

 thing near it. The peduncle is axillary, 

 sometimes one but more generally two- 

 flowered. The flowers are large, pure white 

 or pale violet. The pods are pendulous, 

 smooth, deep green, and variable in size, 

 but for the most part oblong compressed 

 somewhat scimitar-shaped terminating in 

 a small hooked point. The peas when ripe 

 are also variable— some being white and 

 round, others blue and wrinkled, and a few 

 large irregular and dull green. 



The use of Peas is familiar to every one. 

 In their dried state they are split and used 

 for soups, or ground into meal for pud- 

 dings, &c. In either case they form an 

 agreeable and nourishing food, containing 

 upwards of one-seventh more of nourish- 

 ing matter than is found in the same 

 weight of wheaten bread. But it is in a 

 green state that peas are most valued for 

 culinary purposes, and more particularly 

 when they are quite small and young. In 

 Queen Elizabeth's time (about 1570), we are 

 told, they were occasionally brought from 

 Holland, and considered 'a dainty dish for 

 ladies— they came so far and cost so dear.' 

 For many years their culture does not 

 appear to have been much attended to, but 

 after the Restoration of Charles II. in 1660, 

 the taste for green peas became fashion- 

 able, and has continued to be so up to the 

 present time— enormous prices being still 

 paid for young peas very early in the sea- 

 son, when they are scarce and regarded as 

 a great delicacy. To have peas in the high- 

 est perfection, they should not be allowed 

 to get too old or too large. When the 

 pods become full and hard, the peas are 

 tli en more suitable for soups than a vege- 

 table dish. 



Besides the varieties of Peas whose seeds 

 are edible, there is a section denominated 

 Sugar-peas, which is remarkable in that 

 the pods are destitute of the inner film 

 peculiar to the pods of the other kinds of 

 Peas. They are consequently more fleshy 

 and crisp, and admit of being cut and 

 dressed in exactly the same manner as 

 French-beans. [W. B. B.] 



