Come ye soft Sylphs ! who sport on Latian land ; 
Come! sweet lip’d Zephyr, and Favonins bland ! 
Teach the fine seed, replete with life, to shoot 
On Earth’s cold bosom its descending root j 
With pith elastic stretch its rising stem, 
Part the twin lobes, and fan the aspiring gem. 
The Natural Order to which Nemophila belongs 
is, as Dr. Liudley says, interesting to the scientific 
botanist from several peculiarities in its structure. 
One of these is the singular manner in which the 
seeds are fixed to the pericarpium. ‘In the begin- 
ning the ovarium has but one cell, from the bottom 
of the cavity of which, and from opposite sides, 
there spring two little plates attached by a small 
stalk, and bearing two conical, rather distended, 
obtuse bodies upon their inner face ; at this time 
the plates Jire formed of very minute and laxly co- 
hering vesicles of cellular tissue. By degrees these 
plates enlarge, and become succulent and form two 
fungous placentae, filling up the whole cavity of the 
ovarium, while the bodies that they bear, changing 
to ovula, are jammed in between the two opposing 
faces of the placentae. At a later period, w hen the 
flower has withered, the placentae so completely fill 
the cavity and conceal the ovula, that they may 
easily be mistaken for half-grown seeds. After 
this time they generally diminish, till they become, 
when the seeds are ripe, a mere membrane, which 
lines the cavity of the capsule. I'he ovula them- 
selves, if squeezed in water, emit a cloudy matter, 
which, when exa,mined microscopically, is found to 
consist of minute moving particles, mixed with 
drops of an oily fluid.’* 
• Bot. Reg. 1601 . 
