NAT. ORDER. SPIRiEACEiE. 
SpiraM Jllipendula. Common Dropwort. — This plant has a 
perennial root, consisting of oval tubers or solid lumps, hanging from 
the main body by threads, which has given it the name it bears — 
Mlipendula and Dropwort. These tubers enable the plant to resist 
drought, and render it very difficult to be eradicated or destroyed ; 
the stem is erect, from a foot to a foot and a half in height, angular, 
smooth, leafy, and a little branched at the top; leaves alternate, in- 
terruptedly pinnate, serrate, and jagged, smooth, composed of several 
pairs of leaflets, all of which are set in uniform, or nearly corres- 
ponding in size ; the terminating leaflet is three-lobed ; a pair of 
roundish, united, indented stipules at the base of each leaf, embracing 
the stem ; the flowers are many, and in a cymose, loose, erect pani- 
cle, cream-colored, often tipped with red, or red on the outside. It 
is an elegant plant, which grows very luxuriantly in gardens, and 
often with double flowers. It flowers early in July. 
Spircea nlmaria. Common Meadow Sweet. — This has a per- 
ennial fibrous root ; stems erect, three or four feet high, angular and 
furrowed, tinged with red, leafy, and branched in the upper part ; 
the leaves are interruptedly pinnate ; leaflets very unequal in size, 
sharply serrate, clothed beneath with white down, the end one re- 
markably large and three-lobed ; a pair of rounded serrate stipules 
are joined to the common leaf-stalk, and clasp the stem ; the flowers 
are white, in a very large compound cyme, the side branches of which 
rise much above the central one; it perfumes the air with the sweet 
hawthorn-like odor of its plentiful blossoms from June till August. 
There are varieties of this species with double flowers, and with 
variegated leaves. 
Spircea trifoliata. Three-leaved Spiraea. — This, the last spe- 
cies which we think worthy of notice at this time, has a perennial 
root ; the stalks are annual, about a foot high, and send out branches 
from the side the whole length ; the leaves are for the most part tri- 
foliate, but sometimes single or in pairs; they are about an inch and 
a half long, and half an inch broad, ending in acute points, sharply 
