PAPILIONACEI. 
llie lower wings lipped witli two narrow, 
black, tail-sliaped processes. It is the P. 
Marsyas of Linnasus. 
The larvee of butterflies are known by 
the name of caterpillars, and are extremely 
various in their forms and colours; some 
being smooth, others beset with spines; 
some are observed to protrude from their 
front, when disturbed, a pair of short feelers, 
nearly analogous to those of a snail. A ca- 
terpillar, when grown to its full size, retires 
to a convenient spot, and securing itself 
properly by a small quantity of silken fila- 
ments, either suspends itself by the tail, 
hanging with its head downwards, or else in 
an upright position, with the body fastened 
round the middle by a proper number of 
filaments. It then casts off the caterpillar 
skin, and commences chrysalis, in which 
state it continues till the enclosed butterfly 
is ready for birth, which liberating itself 
from the skin of the chrysalis, remains till 
its wings, which are at first very short, weak, 
and covered with moisture, are fully ex- 
tended ; this happens in the space of a few 
minutes, when the animal suddenly quits the 
state of inactivity to which it had long been 
confined, and becomes at pleasure an inha- 
bitant of the air. 
PAPILIONACEI, in botany, a term 
applied to certain flowers, from their sup- 
posed resemblance to the figure of a butter- 
fly. The term is applied also to the thirty- 
second order of Linnaeus’s “ Fragments of 
a Natural Method.” They are divided into 
two sections ; viz. those that have the fila- 
ments on the stamina distinct, and those 
with one set of united filaments. These 
plants, otherwise called leguminous, from 
the seed vessel, which is that sort termed a 
legumen, are very different both in size and 
duration ; some of them being herbaceous, 
and those either annual or perennial; others, 
woody vegetables of the shrub and tree kind, 
a few of which rise to the height of seventy 
feet, and upwards. The herbaceous plants 
of this order generally climb ; for being 
weak, and as it were helpless of themselves, 
indulgent nature has either provided them 
with tendrils, and even sharp-pointed hooks 
at their extremities, to fasten upon the 
neighbouring trees or rocks, or endued the 
stalks with a faculty of twisting themselves 
for the purpose of support around the bodies 
in their neighbourhood. The pea, vetch, 
and kidney-bean, afford familiar examples 
of the appearances in question. The shrubs 
and trees of this natural family are mostly 
armed with strong spines. The roots are 
very long, and furnished with fibres : some 
genera have fleshy tubercles, placed at pro- 
per intervals along the fibres. The stems 
are cylindric, as are likewise the young 
branches, which are placed alternately : 
those which climb twist themselves from 
right to left, in a direction opposite to the 
apparent diurnal motion of the sun. The 
bark of the large trees is extremely thick 
and wrinkled, so as to resemble a net with 
long meshes ; the wood is very hard in the 
middle, and commonly coloured or veined ; 
the alburnum is less hanl, and generally of 
a yellow colour. The buds are hemispheri- 
cal, without scales, and proceed from the 
branches horizontally, a little above the 
angle which they form with the leaves. The 
leaves are alternate, and of different forms, 
being either simple, finger-shaped, orwinged. 
The flowers are hermaphrodite, and pro- 
ceed either from the wings of the leaves, as 
in furze, liquorice, lupin, kidney-bean, &c. 
or from the extremity of the branches, as 
in ebony of Crete, false acacia, trefoil, coral- 
tree, &CC. The calyx is a perianthium of 
one leaf, bell-shaped, branching out at the 
bottom, and cut on its brim or margin into 
five irregular divisions, or teeth, the lower- 
most of which, being the odd one, is longer 
than the rest : the other four stand in pairs, 
of which the uppermost is shortest, and 
stands furthest asunder. The bottom of 
the calyx is moistened with a sweet liquor, 
like honey, which may be deemed the nec- 
tarium of these plants. The petals are four 
or five in number, very irregular, and from 
their figure and position bear an obvious re- 
semblance in most of the genera to a but- 
terfly expanding its wings for flight. The 
stamina are generally ten in number. These 
are either totally distinct, as in plants of the 
first section; or united by the filaments into 
one or two bundles, involving tlie seed bud, 
as in those of the second and third. In tlie 
latter case, where there are two sets of 
united filaments, one of the sets is composed 
of nine stamina, which are united into a 
crooked cylinder, that is cleft on one side 
through its whole length. Along this cleft 
lies the tenth filament, or stamen, which 
constitutes the second set, and is often so 
closely attached to the large bundle, that it 
cannot be separated without some difficulty. 
The seed-bud is single, placed upon the re- 
ceptacle of the flower, oblong, cylindrical, 
slightly compressed, of the length of the 
cylinder of the united stamina by which it 
is involved ; and sometimes, as in the coral- 
tree, elevated by a slender foot stalk, which 
