228 
ORDER DECANDRIA. 
class seem to possess active properties ; the seeds of the Lupine 
are said to be poisonous. A traveller states, that the inhabitants 
of the banks of the Nile, are often visited in the night by the 
hippopotamus or river horse, a large animal which does great 
damage to the gardens and fields ; and that they destroy the an- 
imal by placing a quantity of the Lupine seeds near where he is 
expected ; these he devours greedily ; they soon swell his stom- 
ach and distend it so much as to cause death. 
The Furze (Ulex Europceus) is a very common plant in Eu- 
rope, though not found so far north as Sweden. It is a flower 
of beautiful appearance ; so much so that Linnams (as is said) 
when he first beheld it fell upon his knees, in a transport of grat- 
itude, and thanked the Author of Nature for thus beautifying the 
earth. 
A class called Polydelphia, or many brotherhoods, having 
stamens united in more than two sets, was formerly admitted? 
but it was thought to be unnecessary, and the genera which it 
contained have been transferred to the class Polyandria ; the 
St. John’s wort (Hypericum,) is among the plants which were 
in the rejected class ; this has its numerous stamens in three 
clusters, not united by their filaments ; but even all the species 
of the Hypericum are not thus divided into separate parcels of 
stamens. This distinction, as the character of a class, is very 
properly laid aside ; and the plants which were in the former 
18th class Polydelphia, ( many brotheThoods,) are now placed in 
the 12th class Polyandria ( many stamens.) 
In the last two lectures, you will recollect we have treated of 
two classes distinguished by the union of their filaments. In 
one class, Monadelphia, the general character was that of fila- 
ments united in one set forming a tube ; the orders of this class 
were founded on the number of stamens, and bore the same 
names as those classes which are founded on a similar circum- 
stance in respect to the stamens. In this class, no particular form 
of the corolla was found to be general, unless we except the last 
order, in which the hollyhock flowers may serve as an example ; 
having a double calyx of an unequal number of divisions, a co- 
rolla of five heart-shaped petals, united into one piece around 
the column, formed by the united filaments. 
In the other class, Diadelphia, we found the marks of dis- 
tinction to be, 
1st. The union of the filaments into two sets, 
2d. The butterfly-shaped corolla ; and, 
3d. The nature of the fruits ; consisting of that kind of pod 
called a legume, and thus forming one great natural family of 
Class Polydelphia, formerly admitted. 
