CXXXIII. — ANALYTICAL DRAWINGS OF THE 
FAMILY ROSACEvT. 
M ore numerous and more varied in size than the Buttercup Family, the 
Rose Family have yet so many points of resemblance to that more primitive 
group as to suggest a relationship and much parallelism of development in the long 
distant past. The main difference, however, between the two groups is in the 
receptacle or base of their flowers ; for whilst in the Buttercup and its allies this 
is a simple tapering cone from which the floral leaves spring one above the other, in 
the Rose Family the receptacle expands outwards into a flat disk or upwards into 
a tube, carrying sepals, petals, and stamens into a ring round, instead of beneath, 
the carpels, making them perigynous^ instead of hypogynous. This indicates a type 
distinctly more specialised or higher than that of the Buttercup Family. The 
individual flowers in the Rosacea are mostly of one simple type, having generally 
their parts in fives and equal, so that the flower is polysymmetric. There is a 
conspicuous corolla, indicative of insect visits ; but with honey so slightly con- 
cealed that there is no restriction as to these visitors, short-tongued flies and bees 
being as well able to supply themselves as insects with a longer proboscis. The 
stamens are generally at least twice as many as the petals, and often three, four, or 
more times as numerous. They usually mature their anthers before the stigmas ; 
but the Burnets {Poteriuni) are exceptional in being wind-pollinated and protogynous. 
It is, however, chiefly in the gynasceum that variety occurs in the Family and 
upon this its main subdivisions are based. The carpels vary in number from the 
single one in the Plums and in Lady’s-mantle, to the five of the Apple and the 
indefinite number in the Rose and the Strawberry ; and they vary in the extent to 
which they are imbedded in the receptacle as much as in number. Each carpel 
contains one, two, or rarely more, ovules, which become exalbuminous seeds. 
Of six Sub-Families into which the Family is divided, two are Tropical or 
sub-tropical and are not represented among our eighteen British genera. 
The Spiraoidea is the Sub-Family represented by the Meadow-sweet (Figs. 1-5). 
In it the carpels are from two to twelve in number, arranged in a whorl on a flat 
receptacle, neither raised nor imbedded : they are mostly two-seeded and split open 
v/hen ripe. Fig. i shows a flower, natural size ; Fig. 2, the same, with the petals 
removed ; Fig. 3, the calyx and gynaeceum enlarged ; Fig. 4, the gynaeceum, slightly 
enlarged ; and Fig. 5, two detached carpels, one of which is in section so as to 
disclose the seeds. 
The Sub-Family Pomoidea comprises the Apples, Pears, Mountain Ash, 
Hawthorn, Medlar, etc., which have from one to five carpels, imbedded in the 
adherent, fleshy receptacular tube, which forms the fruit known as a pome, with a 
parchment-like or stony core and the withered persistent calyx at its summit. In 
the Apple (Figs. 6-12), Fig. 6 represents a flower, seen in section ; Fig. 7, the same, 
