NATURAL HISTORY. 
364 
fruit ripens, at which time it becomes a kind of flat pod, called a 
silique, composed of two valves, each covering a small cell, and the 
cells are separated by a thin partition. When the seed is ripe, the 
valves open from the bottom upwards, to give it passage, and remain 
last to the stigma at top. The flat round seed are ranged along each 
side of the partition, and fastened alternately on each side, by a short 
pedicle, to the sutures or edge of the partition. The great number 
of species in this class (15) has determined botanists to divide it 
into two sections, in which the flowers are perfectly alike, but the 
fruits, pericarps, or seed vessels, are sensibly different. 
The first order contains the cruciform flowers, with a silique or 
pod, such as the stock Cheiranthus clierii, and the like. The second 
contains those whose seed vessel is a silicle, that is a small and very 
short pod, almost as wide as it is long, and differently divided within, 
as of Whitlow grass, Mithridate Mustard, Bastard-cress &c. in the 
fields, and Scurry-grass. Horse radish, Candy-tuft, and Honesty in 
gardens. If none of these are known, I presume that at least an ac- 
quaintanee is formed with the Shepherd’s purse, so common a weed 
in kitchen gardens. The Shepherd’s purse is of the cruciform tribe, 
and the silicle branch of it, and the form of the seed is triangular. 
It is now time to breathe, and I am very much afraid of trespas¬ 
sing too much on your pages. It is necessary, however, to give the 
essential characters of the numerous tribe of cruciform flowers. I 
hope this description, which may be difficult to be understood, will 
become more intelligible when we have gone over it with some at¬ 
tention, having, at the same time, the object before our eyes. I will, 
therefore, only offer one hint more, viz. that in this class and many 
others, the flowers will often be found much smaller than those of the 
stock, and sometimes so small that we cannot examine their parts 
without the assistance of a glass, an instrument without which a 
botanist cannot go on any more than without a lancet, a needle, alid 
a pair of small sharp scissors. 
ARTICLE XI.—PECULIARITIES OF PLANTS, 
With some Observations on those which possess, or are supposed to possess the 
power to entrap Insects. 
by Joseph paxton, f l. s. H. s. &,c; (Continued from p. 313.^ 
In the article on this subject, last month, an error escaped our notice 
in page 313, the second line from the top, where it is stated that Dr. 
Jack found the bottoms of the pitchers beautifully punctured, as if 
bv the mouths of itmects. It should have been, by the mouths of 
J " 
