‘THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF PLANTS. 
No. II. 
BY C. M. TRACY. 
Tue second of the royal lines in the vegetable world 
affords a view greatly different from the first. That, it 
will be remembered, consisted of the composite flowers, 
or the Family of the Asterids. Now we will contemplate 
for a while the family of the second degree of botanical 
importance. It is familiarly known to us in the Pea and 
Bean. It has long been called by students the Legumi- 
nose; that is, the Leguminous Plants, or those bearing 
a legume, or simple pod, for a fruit. Lindley thought 
proper, in arranging the “Vegetable Kingdom,” to cal 
this family the Faba, from faba,.a bean; but if the 
reader please, we will employ a title for them here shorter 
and more convenient, and derived from the group that 
best typifies the family, which the bean does not. We 
will term them the Pisids, from pisum, or the Pea. 
The royalty of these Pisids is quite different from that 
of the Asterids. Those challenge admiration by their 
vast numbers and universal presence ; but these more by 
their peculiar nobility of style, whether as to beauty or 
_ grandeur. Not that these are much inferior, numerically ; 
for, in the best enumerations of the day, six thousand five 
hundred species are reckoned, arranged in four hundred 
and sixty-seven separate groups or genera. We have no 
calculations made so recently as to warrant our stating 
eee : very exactly the geographical distribution of these spe 
= in various regions. They are not, however, greatly 
posed to stray ‘about and play the emigrant over the 
ords broad acres ; but are rather remarkable for sitting 
aie ~ at n and enjoying their separate dig- 
(470) 
