CLASS PENTANDRIA. 
193 
rant and gooseberry. The coffee, (Coffea arabica ) is also in 
this class and order. This plant is a native of Arabia ; it is 
said to be used to a great extent by the Turks and Arabs, to 
counteract the narcotic effects of opium, which they use in 
large quantities. It is remarked by a physician, that the ques- 
tion is often asked, which is best for the health, to use tea or 
coffee : he thinks the question a difficult one to answer. The 
Turks, who drink great quantities of coffee, and the Chinese, 
who make equally as free use of tea, do not exhibit such pecu- 
liar effects as renders it easy to decide, that one is more injuri- 
ous than the other. 
We find in this order a natural family, called Contorta;, on 
account of their twisted corollas; the Perewinkle, (Vinca,) is an 
example. 
Before closing our remarks upon the first order of the 5th 
class, we will remind you that the wine grape is found here ; it 
is in the 72d order of Jussieu, Yites.* The general character of 
the grape, (Vitis,) is a calyx five toothed, petals connected at the 
top, a five seeded, round pericarp. The stamens and pistils are, 
in some genera, dioecious, or on separate plants ; this according to 
our principles of classification, would carry the genus into the 
class Dioecia ; but as some species of the genus have perfect flow- 
ers, containing five stamens and one pistil, and as it is never 
permitted to separate the different species of a genus, we take 
the dioecious species, which are less numerous than the pentan- 
drous, into the fifth class. 
The regions which produce the wine grape have a mean annu- 
al temperaturef of 50 degrees on the northern border and 59 de- 
grees on the southern. Lines of temperature have been describ- 
ed by Humboldt, by remarking the peculiar vegetables in differ- 
ent countries. lie has traced the northern limit of the wine 
grape, where the mean annual tempeVature is about 50°, from 
near the latitude of Albany across the United States, to the Pa- 
cific ocean ; nof however in a straight line, for climate, .although 
chiefly dependent on latitude, is yet much modified by other cir- 
cumstances ; and on the western coast of America we find in 
* Vines. 
t By mean annual temperature, is meant a medium between the extremes 
of heat and cold. In a climate where the thermometer in summer would 
rise to 100 degrees, and in winter sink to zero or 0, the medium would be 
50 degrees; this is probably not far from the mean annual temperature of 
our climate. The mean annual temperature at the equator is reckoned to 
be about 84 degrees. 
Coffee — Natural family, controtae, or twisted corollas — Wine grape of 
the natural order — Yites — Temperature of the regions which produce the 
wine grape. 
17 
