164 
CLASS DICANDRIA. 
resembling a tobacco pipe. The stems are scaly, but without leaves ; 
the whole plant is perfectly white, and looks as if made of wax ; it 
is sometimes called Indian-pipe. You must look for this in shady 
woods near the roots of old trees, in June or July. 
Rhododendron, or, as it is sometimes called, mountain laurel or 
rose-bay, an evergreen with large and beautiful oval leaves, is found* 
growing on the sides of mountains, or in wet swamps of C(3dar ; it 
flourishes beneath the shade of trees ; the pink and white flowers 
appear in large showy clusters, and continue in bloom for a long 
period ; they have a 5-toothed calyx, a 5-cleft, funnel-form, some- 
what irregular corolla, stamens 10, sometimes half the number, cap- 
sule 5-ce]led, 5-valved. At Fig. 134, c, is a flower of the genus Ledum, 
which is found in the same family as the Rhododendron ; it has a 
very small calyx, and a flat, five-parted corolla. 
Connected by natural relations to the two genera above mention- 
ed, is the American laurel, (Kahnia,) a splendid shrub, sometimes 
found ten or thirteen feet high. On the Catskill mountains, it is said 
to have been seen twenty feet in height ; the flowers grow in that 
kind of cluster called a corymb ; they are either white or red ; but 
this fair and beautiful shrub is of a poisonous nature, particularly 
fatal to sheep who are attracted towards it ; one species of the 
Kalmia is on this account called sheep-laurel. 
Among the plants which have a place in this part of the artificial 
system, is the DionjEa muscipula*, or Venus' fly-trap. This is a 
native of North Carolina; the leaves spring from the roots ; each 
leaf has, at its extremity, a kind of appendage like a small leaf 
.doubled; this is bordered on its edges by glands resembling hairs, 
and containing a liquid that attracts insects ; but no sooner does the 
unfortunate insect ahght upon the leaf, than with a sudden spring, 
it closes, and the little prisoner is crushed to death in the midst ol 
the sweets it had imprudently attempted to seize; after the insect, 
overcome by the closeness of the grasp, has expired, the leaf again 
unfolds itself Although we may account for this phenomenon by 
attributing it to the irritability of the plant, we have onl}^ removed 
the ditficulty by adducing a cause which itself remains to be ex- 
plained. We shall in a future lecture make some remarks upon the 
irritability, or, as it is sometimes called, sensibility of plants. 
Order Digynia. 
This order contains the Hydrangea^ an elegant East Indian exo- 
tic ; a species of this plant, a shrub v/ith white flowers, is said to have 
been found on the banks of 'the Schuylkill river. 
The Pink tribe, of the natural order CaryophyllecB, is composed of 
plants belonging to this class, some of which have three styles, others 
have five, but tlie greater part have two, and therefore belong to the 
2d order. The exotic genus Dianthus, containing the carnation, and 
other garden-pinks, and sweet-wiUiam, is a great favourite with flo- 
rists, who gravely tell us what varieties we ought most to admire ; as 
if fashion, and not nature, were to regulate our emotions. The seed 
of the carnation often produces a difterent kind of flower from its 
parent. A writer on the culture of flowers, observes, that a florist 
may consider himself fortunate, if, in the course of his life, he should 
be able to raise sia^ superior carnations ;— but the hope that such 
success may crown his labours, bethinks a sufficient stimulus to con- 
tinued exertions. Such contracted views of nature and of the pur- 
* See Appendix, Plate iii. Fig. 6. 
Mountain-laurel— Kalmia, or sheep-laurel — Dionaea— Pink tri!»e. 
