158 
CLASS DECANDRIA. 
tlie tentL class are to be found in sliady woods in June and 
July. We will mention another of the heath tribe, the Mono- 
tropa, a most curious little plant; — several stems of a few 
inches in liight form a cluster ; each stem supports a single 
flower, 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. This 
may be sought for in shady woods, near the roots of old trees, 
in June or July. Rhododendron, an evergreen with large and 
beautiful oval leaves, is found growing on the sides of mount- 
ains, or in wet swamps of cedar; 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 five-toothed calyx ; a five-cleft, funnel-form, somewhat 
irregular corolla; stamens ten, sometimes half the number, 
capsule five-celled, five-valved. At Fig. 141, c, is a flower of 
the genus Ledum (Labrador tea) ; it has a very small calyx, 
and a flat, five-parted corolla ; is found on the White Mountains 
of ISTew Hampshire. Connected by natural relations to the 
Rhododendrece is a splendid shrub, the American laurel {Kal- 
7nia). On the Alleghany Mountains it may be seen twenty 
feet in hight ; the flowers grow in a corymb ; they are either 
white or red. This fair and beautiful shrub is of a poisonous 
nature, particularly fatal to sheep who are attracted toward it ; 
one species of the Kalmia is on this account called sheep-laurel. 
219. The DiONJEA muscijpula^^ or Yenus' fly-trap, is a native 
of North Carolina ; the leaves spring from the roots ; each leaf 
nas, 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 alight upon the leaf, than with a 
audden spring it closes, and the little prisoner is crushed to 
death in the midst of 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. 
220. Order Digynia^ two pistils^ contains the Hydrangea^ an 
elegant East Indian exotic ; a species of this plant, a shrub with 
white flowers, is said to have been found on the banks of the 
Schuylkill River. The Pink tribe, of the natural order Garyo- 
pliyllacecB., is composed of plants belonging to this class, some 
of which have three styles, or sessile stigmas, others have^'e', 
but the greater part have two. 
a. The genus Dianthus, containing the pinks and sweet-william, is a great favor 
lie with florists, who gravely tell us what varieties we ought most to admire ; aa 
• See Appendix, Plate iii., Fig. 6. 
Mountain-laurel -Kalmi.i.— 219. Dionaea -220. Hydrangea— Pink tribe— a. Varieties of carnations. &a 
