172 THE SAXIFRAGE FAMILY, | [Parnassia, 
1, P. palustris, Linn. (fig. 389). Marsh Parnassia, Grass-of-Par- 
nassus.—Stock very short. Radical leaves rather long-stalked, broadly 
heart-shaped, glabrous as the rest of the plant. Stems 6 inches to a foot 
high, with a single sessile leaf below the middle. Flowers white, rather 
large. Segments of the calyx ovate, spreading, 3 to 32 lines long. Petals 
obovate, spreading, nearly twice that length, Imperfect stamens at the — 
base of each petal short and thick, with a tuft or 10 or 12 short, white — 
filaments, each bearing a little, yellow, globular gland. Capsule globular. _ 
In bogs and moist heaths, throughout northern Europe and Russian 
Asia, becoming a- mountain plant- in southern Europe and west-central 
Asia. Frequent in Britain, 7. end of summer and autumn. 
XXXITI. DROSERACEA, THE SUNDEW FAMILY. 
A small family confined in Britain to the single genus 
Drosera, but. comprising also a few exotic genera from hotter 
climates, all remarkable for the same glandular hairs, but 
differing chiefly in the number of stamens, or of the valves of 
the capsule, or in the insertion of the ovules, The family is 
usually placed amongst Thalamiflore, the majority of the 
species having their flowers rather hypogynous than peri- 
gynous; but there is no order there with which they are 
nearly connected, and altogether the group appears much more 
naturally associated with Saxifragacee, of which it was, in 
the first edition of this work, considered as an anomalous tribe, 
but, in compliance with the opinions of the majority of botanists, 
it is now restored as an independent family. 
I, DROSERA. SUNDEW. 
Herbs, with long-stalked radical leaves, covered with long, glandular 
hairs or bristles ; the leafless flower-stems terminating in a simple or forked 
unilateral spike or raceme. Sepals 5, free from the ovary. Petals and 
stamens 5; in the British species almost hypogynous, but in many exotic 
ones decidedly perigynous. Styles 3 or 4, each divided into 2. Capsule 
l-celled, opening into 3 or 4 valves, sometimes split into twice that num- 
ber. Seeds several, with albumen, inserted on 3 or 4 parietal placentas in 
the centre of the valves. 
The Sundews are rather numerous in species, and found in nearly all 
parts of the globe where there are bogs. The curious glandular hairs of 
the leaves distinguish them from all other British genera, independently of ~ 
their floral characters. 
Leaves obovate or orbicular, as broad as long . 1. D. rotundifolia, 
Leaves obovate-oblong, three or four times as long as proad . 2. D. longifolia, 
Leaves linear-spathulate, five or more times as long as broad. 3. D. anglica. 
1. D. rotundifolia, Linn. (fig. 390). Common Sundew.—Rootstock 
short and slender, the leaves on long stalks, nearly orbicular, 3 to near 6 
lines in diameter, covered on the upper sarface with long, red, viscid hairs, 
