148 
ORDER MONOGTNIAl. 
trees " Princes of India," and the grasses Plebeians. 
In our republican country, where aristocratic distinc- 
tions among men are discarded, orders of nobility 
among plants should not exist ; the humblest in ap- 
pearance are often found most valuable. 
The lily has six stamens; six petals, 
three exterior, three interior; capsule 
three-sided, with three cells and three 
valves; the seeds are arranged in six 
rows. 
a. This proportion as to numbers seems to forbid the idea that this plant was 
produced without the agency of a designing mind. We are not always, however, 
to expect the same symmetry in plants as has been here remarked. It is in the 
Datural, as in the moral world, that, although we see around us such proofs of order 
and system, as manifest the superintending care of one Almighty Being, yet we meet 
with irregularities which we cannot comprehend ; but, although we may admire 
the order, we are not to say that even what seems disorder is formed without a 
plan. 
" Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce 
His works unwise, of which the smallest part 
Exceeds the narrow visions of his mind 1" 
b. The TiiHp has no style, but its three-parted stigma is attached to a three 
cornered ovary. The corolla of the tulip is more expanded at the base than that 
of the Jily. The scape of the tulip is never more than one-flowered, while the stem 
of the lily usually has a number of -flowers. In no plant is the variation made by 
culture greater than in the tulip ; it is said, that of one single species (Tulipa ges- 
neriana), eleven hundred varieties are cultivated in Holland. About the middle 
of the seventeenth century the rage for tulips {tulip mania) was so great that some 
were sold for four thousand dollars, and one variety, called the Viceroi, for ten 
thousand dollars ; but this extraordinary traffic was checked by a law, that no tulip 
or other flower should be sold for a sum exceeding one hundred and seventy-five 
dollars. 
e. The Crown-imperial'^ is a majestic flower, and presents 
in the regularity of its parts and curious appearance of its 
nectariferous glands facts of great interest both in the depart- 
ments of botanical classification and physiology. But we find 
in the fetid odor of this splendid flower, a circumstance which 
leads m ti prefer as an ornament for our parlors or as a gift 
to a friend, the humble mignonette or the lowly violet. 
d. This simple fact might suggest to the young, that in order to be desirable to 
others, they must be agreeable ; the mere circumstance of a fine person cannot 
long render tolerable the society of one who possesses neither useful nor amiable 
qualities. 
19Y. The lily family is divided into several tribes, as the 
TulipacecB, which are hulbous jplants^ the perianth scarcely ad- 
hering to form a tube^ the integuments of the seed soft^ as in the 
mlip, lily, and crown-imperial ; the HemerocallidcB^ in which the 
petals are united in a tube, as the day-lily and tube-rose ; be- 
* This plant is represented at Plate vii.. Fig. 4, of the Appendix ; the YocCA aloifolia, which be- 
ongs to the same natural family, is represented at Plate ii., Fig. 1. The Narcissus is represented at 
Plate vii.. Fig. 7. The Agave, of the Narcissi family, is represented at Plate vii.. Fig. 2. Th» 
Pineapple, belonging to this class and order, is represented at Plate v.. Fig. 3. 
Tulip— c. Crown-imperial — d. Reflection.— 197 Tribes of the lily family. 
