472 THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF PLANTS. 
All flowers, or at least the great majority, are made up of 
five leaves or petals; and so is this, if you will believe it. 
But you can hardly see any such structure; it merely 
looks like a miniature lady’s head in a high-front bonnet 
of the year 1838. Or perhaps it suggests the idea to you 
that it has to scores of others, who for years have likened 
such flowers to butterflies. Hence these plants are often 
called Papilionaceous, from papilio, a butterfly. Such 
notions are all fanciful ; but the structure of these flowers 
is quite decisive. As you now hold it, the large, showy 
top leaf or petal is one only, and, we might say, about as 
large as it should be. Below it, right and left, are two 
more, mated like your gloves; these have been called the 
wings. They are considerably reduced, usually paler, 
and sometimes of a very different color from the large 
one above, which we may call the banner. This makes 
three petals. Next, between the wings, wrapped up in 
them closely in some cases, is what does not look much 
like a petal or leaf of any sort; but is really the fourth 
and fifth, very little developed, and grown together by 
the edges. They make what has always been called the 
keel. This is the structure of the Pea-flower the world 
over. It never appears outside of the Royal Family of 
Pisids, and it is present there in a vast majority of cases. 
It is one of the three badges of their regal character. 
Next, take a pea or bean-pod, just fit to shell. It is 
one-sided in its form; that is, the point farthest from the 
: stem is on one side more than the other, so that of the 
two seams at the edges of the pod one is nearly straight, 
and one very much rounded. Now split this pod cau- 
tiously along the straight side. The seeds lie within, and 
if you have done the thing nicely, you have laid the pod 
open flat, with each half claiming the alternate seeds, 50 
