5 
seldom branched, and the outside is 
smooth. The leaves are long and nar¬ 
row with veins running their whole 
length and springing either from the 
root, or from joints in the stem. The 
flowers have their stamens and petals 
always in some number that can be 
divided by three. So unvarying is this 
law that a botanist, by merely looking 
at a flower, could tell at once whe¬ 
ther it belonged to an inward or an 
outward grower. Three Endogens are 
given in the Plate. GRASS (/). PALM 
(g). ORCHIS (A). Of GRASS more will 
be said by and by. The PALM be¬ 
longs to other countries, where in the 
East, the Date Palm feeds the Arab of 
the Desert, and in the West, the Cocoa 
nut supplies both food and drink to 
the Southsea Islander. The palm leaf 
which does not fade, and lives as long 
as the tree, has always been the to¬ 
ken of victory and an emblem of the Everlasting joy pre¬ 
pared in Heaven for those who have won the battle with 
sin in this world. 
The ORCHIS is a pretty spring plant which may be found in 
woods and meadows. The star of shining green leaves 
spotted with black is one of the first tokens of summer, 
and from within, shoots up the soft stem and purple spike 
of the handsome spotted Orchis. That in the picture is 
the Meadow orchis, which grows in company with cows¬ 
lips all over our pastures and may be known by the 
brown stripes on the wings, and there is also the sweet 
white Butterfly or Honeysuckle Orchis, so fragrant and 
so delicate. Orchises have one stamen and the rudiments 
of two others, growing into the pistil, but their construc¬ 
tion is far too puzzling for a young botanist, and we will 
pass on, only just pausing to note that the Orchis tribe is 
the most curious of all in form. Our own are droll enough. 
The six petals manage to assume many odd shapes, the 
spur behind, the helmet above, and the wings-at the sides 
and the broad spotted lip, and some families seem for¬ 
med in imitation of insects. We have the Bee Orchis 
whose velvet lip is turned over and mottled with brown 
and yellow like the tail of a Bee, and the rarer Fly Orchis 
which looks like a blue-eyed fly, cut out of puce coloured 
velvet; and the Man Twayblade, like a little green man 
hanging. But in hot climates the Orchis tribe are beyond 
measure strange and beautiful. Frogs, lizards, butter¬ 
flies, nay even the white dove brooding on her nest, are 
to be found among their fantastic shapes, and are some of 
" the most wondrous tokens of the infinite variety of Creation, 
so wild yet always obeying a certain law of regularity. 
II. EXOGENS or OUTWARD GROWERS. 
Exogens spring up with two seed leaves 
or cotyledons on a single stem. This 
stem gradually enlarges by adding 
layers to the outside, in circles one 
beyond the other, the hardest the in¬ 
nermost , surrounding a central pith 
which communicates with the outer 
ones and the bark, by little rays called 
the MEDULLARY rays (the best way 
to see how this is, would be to look 
at the stump of a newly cut down tree, 
when the rings one within the other 
may plainly be observed). The stem 
or trunk is generally branched and the 
bark is cracked and furrowed when old to make room for 
the increasing size of the tree. The leaves spring from 
footstalks and have one main rib down the middle, 
branching off into other veins, and these joined together 
by lesser ones, so as to make a network throughout so 
beautiful and intricate that nothing can give any notion of it 
but looking at a skeleton leaf. The whole of this net is cove¬ 
red by a membrane filled with cells containing green co¬ 
louring-matter and which is called the PARENCHYMA. 
The divisions of the corolla, and the stamens may be counted 
either by twos, by fours, or b y fives, the rule of five being 
by far the most constant; and the seeds are always divi¬ 
ded into two, that they may give birth to the two seed 
leaves. The way in which a bean or a walnut is sure to 
break in half is an instance of this. All our timber trees 
are exogens and so are almost all our principal plants. The 
examples in the plate are the Rose (*). The Auricula ( k ). 
The Clematis (l). The Oak (m). In all these, different as 
they are, you may trace the veined leaf, and the corolla 
divided by five. The Oak branch is drawn with the acorn 
instead of the blossom, which like that of the hazelnut 
has its stamens and pistils in different flowers; the carpel 
blossoms being small, sitting on the bough and almost 
hidden. The stamen bearing flowers hang one over the other 
with scales between, forming long soft tassels or calkins 
called by country children pussycats. It is believed that 
the wind or the bees carry the pollen from them to the 
germs: But of all these wonders we shall have to speak, 
more particularly at their own pictures. 
PLATE II. SPRING-FLOWERS. 
No sooner has the soft south wind begun to breathe warmly 
upon the hard frosty ground, than the vegetable world 
begins to wake from the winter sleep, and patiently and 
silently do the buds peep out from the earth; ready to 
wait quietly if another cold wind should sweep over them, 
or to sleep gently beneath a fresh coat of snow, but pres¬ 
sing bravely and cheerfully on at the first shower, and 
smiling in the beams of the wintry sun. The earliest and 
hardiest of these have a curious provision, a sort of under 
ground bud, which is called a bulb. Look at it in the 
CROCUS (A) and the SNOW DROP (c). The true roots are 
below, fibres like other roots, but the bulb was formed in 
the summer of the previous year, and consists of coat 
within coat, all covering and nursing the young plant 
folded closely up within them. This bulb contains a 
store of nourishment, drawn from the ground, and laid up 
within it, so it has no need te ask the dry wintry soil for 
any maintenance for the plant, but only to push it on into 
the upper air, and this is the reason that hyacinths will 
blossom in glasses, without any earth, but with only a little 
water to support their fibres. All bulbs are endogens, and 
have long leaves growing straight from the root. In 
the SNOWDROP (c) the first thing seen is the white 
blossom bud, rising between the green leaves, a most 
welcome sight. It is held upright by the calyx, a green 
sheath, which by and by splits, and standing upright, 
lets the white drop hang down on the delicate stem. The 
petals are six; three, white, egg shaped, and large, enclosing 
three smaller, cleft in the middle, and each marked with 
a spot of green. In the midst are six stamens, and a 
single carpel, the germ of which is outside the corolla. 
The pure and modest white and green of the snowdrop 
make it more loved and prized as the first child of spring, 
than many more beautiful flowers. It fears no cold, and 
is to be found in the shade in almost every garden, and 
in some few fortunate places it is wild. The GOLDEN 
CROCUS (A), as brave and merry as the snowdrop is pen¬ 
sive and retiring, basks in the first rays of sunshine, and 
loses no time in meeting them, for it has not even a stem 
to put up, and the long slender leaves with a white mid¬ 
rib do not come forth till late in the year. There is a 
sheathlike calyx, like thin paper at first, but the swelling 
bud soon splits it, and on every fine day, widely do the 
six petals unfold to let in the sunshine to the three sta¬ 
mens, and the carpel so beautifully crowned with a saffron 
stigma. Bright vases are the crocuses, whether, purple, 
yellow or white, and dearly do the bees love to go deep 
into them, for the first taste of new spring honey of the 
year; but they only open for the bright hours of the day. 
As soon as the sun goes off, or is hidden by a cloud, the 
corolla closes up over the treasure within, and opens no 
more till called by the next sunbeam. One purple crocus 
is wild in England, but the handsome yellow one comes 
from Turkey. 
Though full of honey, Crocuses have not the honeycup or nec¬ 
tary which may be seen in the two NARCISSUSES (a) 
and (A). They belong to a beautiful genus of bulbous 
rooted flowers, named from a youth in an old Greek 
fable, who fell in love with his own image reflected in 
2 
