ALE 
is common in gardens where exotic plants 
are preserved. A. guianensis, or Guinea 
aloe, when in flower, seldom continues in 
beauty more than two or three days, and 
never produces seeds in England. The 
Ceylon, Guinea, and sweet-scented species, 
are too tender to live through the winter in 
England, unless in a warm stove ; and they 
will not produce flowers if the plants are 
not plunged into a tan bed. The creeping 
roots of the Ceylon and Guinea sorts send 
up many heads, which should be cut off in 
June, and after having been laid in the stove 
a fortnight, that the wounded part may heal ; 
they should be planted in small pots of light 
sandy earth, plunged into a moderate hot- 
bed, and treated like other tender succulent 
plants, and be never set abroad in summer. 
ALEURITES, in botany, a genus of Mo- 
noecia Monadelphia class and order, of the 
natural order of Tricocc®. The flowers are 
male and female ; the calyx of the male is a 
perianthium; the corollas five petals; the 
nectary has five-cornered scales ; the sta- 
mens are numerous filaments; the anthers 
roundish. The female flowers are few, the 
calyx, corolla, and nectarium, as in the 
male, but larger. There are two seeds with 
a double bark. Only one species, a tree in 
the islands of the South Seas. 
ALEXANDRIAN copy of the New 
Testament, preserved in the British Mu- 
seum, is referred to as an object of curio- 
sity, as well as of considerable importance, 
to persons who study the scriptures criti- 
cally. It consists of four large quarto, or 
rather folio volumes, containing the whole 
bible in Greek, including the Old and New 
Testament, with the Apocrypha, and some 
smaller pieces, but not quite complete. It 
was placed in the British Museum in 1758 ; 
and had been a present to Charles I. from 
Cyrillus Lucaris, a native of Crete, and pa- 
triarch of Constantinople, by Sir Thomas 
Rowe, ambassador from England to the 
Grand Seignior in the year 1628. Cyrillus 
brought it with him from Alexandria, where 
it was probably written. It is said to have 
been written by Thecla, a noble Egyptian 
lady, about thirteen hundred years ago. 
In the New Testament there is wanting the 
beginning as far as Matt. xxv. 6; likewise 
from John vi. 50, to viii. 52 ; and from 2 
Cor. iv. 19, to xii. 7. It has neither accents 
nor marks of aspiration ; it is written with 
capital, or, as they are called, uncial letters, 
and there are no intervals between the 
words, but the sense of a passage is some- 
times terminated by a point, and sometimes 
ALG 
by a vacant space. Dr. Woride published 
this valuable work in 1^86, with types cast 
for the purpose, line for line, precisely like 
the , original MS : the copy has been ex- 
amined with the greatest care, and it is 
found to be so perfect a resemblance of the 
original, that it may supply its place. The 
■authenticity, antiquity, &c. of this MS. is 
briefly, but ably discussed in Rees’s New 
Cyclopedia. Vol. I. p. ii. 
ALGffJ, in botany, an order or division of 
the Cryptogamia class cf plants. It is one 
of the seven families or natural tribes, into 
which the vegetable kingdom is distributed, 
in the Philosophia Botanica of Linnaeus ; 
the 57th order of his fragments of a natural 
method. 
The plants belonging to this order are 
described as having their root, leaf, and 
stem entire, or all one. The whole of the 
sea-weeds, and various other aquatic plants, 
are comprehended under this division. From 
their admitting of little distinction of roof, 
leaf, or stem ; and the parts of their flowers 
being equally incapable of description ; the 
genera are distinguished by the situation of 
what is supposed to be the flowers or seeds, 
or by the resemblance which the whole 
plant bears to some other substance. The 
parts of fructification are either found in 
saucers or tubercules, as in lichens ; in hol- 
low bladders, as in the fuci ; or dispersed 
through the whole substance of the plants, 
as in the ulvae. The substance of the plants 
has much variety; it is, flesh-like or leather- 
like, membranaceous or fibrous, jelly-like or 
horn-like, or it has the resemblance of a 
calcareous earthy matter. 
Lamarck distributes the aigte into three 
sections : the first comprehends all those 
plants whose fructification is not apparent 
or seems doubtful. These commonly live 
in water, or upon moist bodies, and are 
membranous, gelatinous, or fiiamentous. To 
this section he refers the byssi, conferva, 
ulva, tremella, and varec. The plants of 
the second section are distinguished by their 
apparent fructification, though it be little 
known, and they are formed of parts which 
have no particular and sensible opening or 
explosion, at any determined period ; their 
substance is ordinarily crustaceous or coria- 
ceous. They include the tassella, cerato- 
sperrna, and lichen. The third section com- 
prehends plants which have their fructifica- 
tion very apparent, and distinguished by 
constituent parts which open at a certain 
period of maturity, for the escape of the 
fecundating dust or seeds. These plants 
H 2 
