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DOMESTIC BOTANY. 



Plants that germinate from seeds and die within a year 

 form no root-stem or bud ; all such are called annuals. 



Tree Stems. 



These comprehend all plants with permanent soft or 

 hard wood stems, as represented by trees, shrubs, palms, 

 aloes, &c. 



Palmids. — Plants with stems varying from 1 to 150 

 or more feet in height, with parallel- veined leaves ; they 

 are either simple, unbranched, as in most palms, tree 

 Strelitzia, grass trees of Australia, the family of cycads, 

 and tree ferns ; or with two or more branches, as dome 

 palm, screw pine, dragon tree, and several of the pine- 

 apple family. 



Arbors (trees). — All plants having a single erect stem, 

 bearing a head of branches, are known as trees. They 

 vary from a few to 400 feet in height, and from a few 

 inches to 30 feet in diameter. They are simple cylindrical, 

 or tapering, as in common trees ; sometimes fluted, as in 

 the wheel tree ; or the lower part forming large but- 

 tresses, as in the silk cotton and locust trees of the West 

 Indies. Some have what are called gouty stems, their 

 base or lower portion being thick and swollen, but sud- 

 denly contracting to a slender stem or head, resembling 

 a common black bottle ; hence the bottle or barrel tree 

 of Australia, while Adenium ohesium, a native of Aden, 

 represents a champagne bottle. The baobab, or Monkey 

 Bread of Africa, is also remarkable for its swollen lower 

 part, in some instances measuring 80 and 90 feet in girth, 

 and not much more than half that number of feet in height. 



Frutices (shrubs) comprehend all plants with se- 

 veral stems, rising from the same base in a spreading 

 direction, forming a bush, such as common laurel, bar- 



