CXIII.— THE MEADOW-SWEET. 
Sptraa Ulmaria Linne. 
A part altogether from their many beauties, the members of the Rose Family 
present so striking a variety of structure that we have found it necessary to 
represent them by an exceptional number of types. In the Stone-crop Family 
(Crassulace<e) we had a uniformly succulent xerophilous group with symmetrical 
flowers, flat or slightly hollowed receptacle, and carpels not less than three in 
number, slightly if at all united at the base, forming many-seeded follicles. In the 
Saxifragacea there is a greater variety in habit and in flower and fruit. The flowers 
are symmetrical, cyclic, and pentamerous ; and the receptacle may be flat but is 
generally hollowed ; but the carpels are generally two in number, united at least at 
their bases, and so sunk in the adherent hollowed receptacular tube as to be either 
half-inferior or wholly so. The stamens may thus be perigynous or, as in Ribe$^ 
epigynous ; and the fruit may be dry or succulent, a capsule, or a berry. In the 
much more extensive Rose Family, however, we have a far greater variety of 
habit : the floral receptacle may be prolonged upwards, flattened, or hollowed : the 
carpels occur in every variety of number, cohesion, and adhesion, from one to an 
indefinite number, apocarpous or practically syncarpous, superior or inferior ; and 
the fruits are more varied than in any other Family, from the one achene of 
Alchemilla, the ring of follicles in Spiraa^ and the many achenes of Geum or 
Potentilla^ to the drupe of Prunus, the many drupels of Rubus, the pome of Pyrus, 
and the highly specialised fruits of the Strawberry and the Rose. This varied 
habit and structure, of which the latter implies varied adaptations for pollination 
and for seed-dispersal, suggest a high antiquity for the Family, as does also the 
fact that it is cosmopolitan in its geographical distribution. 
So close is the affinity between the Saxifmgace^ and Rosacea that some genera 
seem to be referred to the one Family or the other almost arbitrarily. It is thus 
difficult to separate the Saxifragaceous genus Astilbe from the Rosaceous Spiraa ; but 
while the former has generally not more than ten stamens and two or three carpels, 
Spiraa has twenty or more stamens and at least five carpels. When, as in Japan, the 
two genera are represented in the same country, as by such species as Astilbe 
iaponica Asa Gray and Spiraa astilboides T. Moore, their affinity is very striking. 
Our British Rosacea fall into four Sub-Families. The first of these, the 
Spiraoidea, may be stipulate or exstipulate : their floral receptacle tapers upward in 
the staminal region ; and the carpels, sometimes reduced to one or two, or 
multiplied to twelve, but usually five, form a level whorl of follicles. The calyx 
persists in the fruit stage and has no epicalyx, and the ovules in the carpels are 
pendulous. 
The genus Spiraa comprises some fifty species of herbaceous or shrubby 
plants, natives of the Temperate and colder regions of the Northern Hemisphere. 
