STUDY OF BOTANY. 
26 
out beyond the corolla, the tive stamens are more visible than the 
live peta^. I make no mention here of the calyx, because it is not 
very distinct in this tribe of nature. 
From the centre of the flower arise two stvdes, each furnished with 
/ v 
its stigma, and sufficiently apparent. These are permanent, or conti¬ 
nue after the petals and stamens fall off!, to crown the fruit. 
The most usual figure of this fruit is an oblong oval; when ripe, it 
opens in the middle, and is divided into two naked seeds, fastened to 
the pedicle, which, with an art that merits our admiration, divides 
likewise into two, and keeps the seeds separately suspended till they 
fall. 
This, then, is the proper character of the umbellate tribe. A su¬ 
perior corolla of five petals, five stamens, two styles upon a naked 
fruit, composed of two seeds growing together. 
Whenever these characters are found united in one fructification, 
be sure that the plant is of this tribe, even though in other respects 
it should have nothing in its arrangement of the order before laid 
down. And if all this order should % be found conformable to- my 
description, but contradicted by an examination of the flower, be 
sure you are deceived. For instance, if you should happen to walk 
out and find an elder in flower, I am almost certain that, at first 
sight, you will say, here is an umbellate plant. In looking at it, you 
will find a large or universal umbel, a small or partial umbel, little 
white flowers, a superior corolla and five stamens; it is certainly an 
umbellate plant, say you. But let us see and take a flower. 
In the first place, instead of five petals, we find a corolla divided 
into five parts, but all of one piece. Now the flowers of umbellate 
plants are not monopetalous, but pentepatalous. There are five sta¬ 
mens, but you see no styles, and oftener three stigmas than two, and 
more frequently three seeds than two. Now the umbellate plants 
have never more nor less than two stigmas or two seeds to a flower. 
Lastly, the fruit of the elder is a soft berry, and that of the umbel¬ 
late tribe dry and naked. The elder, then, is not an umbellate plant. 
If you inspect with more accuracy the disposition of the flowers, 
you will see that the elder has only the structure of the umbellate 
tribe in appearance. For though the principal rays proceed from 
the same centre, the smaller ones are irregular, and the flowers are 
borne on a second subdivision. In short the whole has not that or¬ 
der and regularity which we find in the umbellate tribe. The ar¬ 
rangement of the flowers of the elder is called a cyme. Thus by 
making a blunder, we sometimes learn to inspect with more accuracy. 
We come to the sixth and last tribe of flowers. 
