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Lilium: Linnaean

BEGONIA Named in honour of M. Begon, a French patron of botany. N.O., Begoniaceoe. LINNAEAN: 21, Monoecia; 9, Polyandria.--These are interesting plants to the botanist no less than to the horticulturist. To discover their alliances has greatly perplexed the masters of classification, but Lindley made the best guess in associating them with the cucurbits, as the observant eye will soon discover after having had the clue revealed. The manner in which the male and female flowers appear side by side, and the disposition of stamens and stigmas, as well as the whole process of reproduction, the winged ovary being a very fair though very distant representative of a gourd, afford ready aid to the student in the determination of relationships. Lindley remarks ("Vegetable Kingdom," 318):--"The discovery by Mr. Hartweg of begonias scrambling up trees and shrubs to the height of twenty-five feet, renders the resemblance almost complete." The begonias are herbaceous plants for the most part, but the order comprises plants of a more robust growth than the begonias of the gardens, but of trees and shrubs in any proper sense of those terms there are none. The order belongs wholly to the new world, being unknown (except as exotic) in the old, although the conditions requisite to the growth of begonias appear to be complete in many parts of Africa and Asia. All the plants of this order have an acid juice, and the roots are astringent and bitter. The leaves are alternate, and unequal at the base, often very richly and variously coloured; the flowers are white or pink, the female flowers being distinguished by the lobed spiral stigmas and the winged fruit. BELL-FLOWER, or CAMPANULA. N.O., Campanulaceae. LINNAEAN: 5, Pentandria; 1, Monogynia.--There appears to be always occasion for suspecting plants that exude a milky juice, and the campanulas come into the suspicious category, for they are acrid and of but small importance in relation to the food of man. The rampion, that is valued in some degree as a salad plant, is a true campanula, and a few roots and fruits of campanulaceous plants are eaten in places where the natives are not particular about their salads and side-dishes. But the best we can get out of them is their beauty, which for the present appears to be sufficient to insure them abundant respect and universal cultivation. The campanulas are all herbs and undershrubs: there are no trees in the order. The flowers present a series of constant characteristics, so that when presenting considerable variation for our amusement they are still very much alike. They are bell-shaped or tazza-shaped; they are blue, or purple, or white; they have each but one corolla piece, and that is cut into five lobes, the calyx also being five-lobed. The rarity of a yellow flower in this order need not be insisted on: even red flowers are scarce, and scarlet out of the question. De Candolle considers the campanulas and lobelias to be closely allied, but the first are distinguished by their regularity in form and symmetry in the number of parts. To the casual observer, the occurrence of brilliant scarlet flowers in the lobelia family places it far apart from the campanula family. RANUNCULUS, from rana, a frog, the plants that give a general name to this order being found in meadows and marshes, as is the case with our common buttercup.--They are familiarly known as crowfoots, but this is a subtle designation, no resemblance to the foot of a crow being traceable in either leaves or flowers. It happens, however, that Dioscorides named a plant the coronopus or crow's foot, and this has been identified as the ranunculus, but why and how we confess we cannot say, unless it be that the leaves of the marsh and meadow species are occasionally stained with blackish patches that fancy may convert into footprints. The plants of this order are mostly herbaceous, the leaves are usually much divided, and the leaf-stalk in some degree clasps the stem. Although the flowers vary to an immense extent in form and colour, they are generally conspicuous and beautiful; even our common buttercup is one of the loveliest of flowers, and the hellebore, clematis, amemone, and delphinium illustrate the floral importance of the family. This is a poisonous family, with watery juices, the leading characteristics being causticity and acridity. One species of buttercup is named Ranunculus acris on account of the acrid property of its watery juice. The common monkshood (Aconitum napellus) is much to be feared as a poisonous plant, because its roots have often been served as horse-radish and have proved fatal to those who have eaten them. This plant, indeed, should be excluded from gardens, notwithstanding that it is a noble adornment of the shrubbery border. It is interesting to find in a family so notorious for their noxious properties an agreeable and wholesome fruit called the May-apple, or wild lemon, the produce at Podophyllum, but all other parts of this plant are poisonous, and the root is well known in medicine.

WINTER HEATH. The Erica derives its name from erico, to break, in allusion to the brittle nature of the wood. N.O., Ericacea. LINNAEAN: 8, Octandria; 1, Monogynia.--This great order is very clearly defined in its leading characters; it furnished but few "useful plants, but comprises many of the most beautiful that are known to us. They are shrubs and undershrubs; none are strictly herbaceous; nearly all are evergreen, the exceptions to this rule being for that reason conspicuous. The flowers vary much in form, but are usually composed of a four or five cleft calyx and a four or five cleft corolla, which is tubular or campanulate, rarely fully expanded, even in the rhododendrons, but in the heaths is distinctly tubular or pouched. The order comprises the ericas, rhododendrons, azaleas, kalmias, gaultherias, arbutus, andromedas, clethras, and menziesias--names suggestive of the liberal contributions to the garden of the Ericaceae. The bilberries come near to the heaths, but differ in the situation of the ovary; and the epacrids also come near, but differ in the character of the anthers. The gaultheria produces an edible berry, and the fruit of the arbutus may be said to be edible, though few human palates can relish it as do the thrushes and blackbirds. AVENS. The name may be traced to avence, and thence to avantia or avencia. In "Ortis Sanitatis" it appears as anancia. But whatever its form or sound, it is impossible now to say in what way the name and the plant are related. TRADESCANTIA. Named in honour of the Tradescants. N O., Commelinacoe. LINNAEAN: 6, Hexandria; 1, Monogynia.--These pretty flowers do not rank high with the gardener or the chemist, or the man whose taste for science is promoted only by the impulse of hunger. we have dismissed the order curtly as of "small consequence," and the genus Tradescantia can do nothing to give it importance. For the botanist, however, there is a point of interest in the midway place between sedges and lilies that is occupied by the spider-worts. Brown compares them with rushes, Lindley compares them with alismads; the amateur gardener will find his own comparisons when the pretty flowers are before him, and he cares more for their beauty than their place in any classification.

ACHIMENES, from cheimaino, sensitive to cold, in allusion to the tender constitution of this tribe of plants. N.O., Gesneraceoe. LINNAEAN: 14, Didynamia; 2, Angiospermia.--A remarkable group of soft-textured, fleshy herbs or shrubs, occasionally climbing or creeping, but mostly compact in growth and springing from scaly tubers or fleshy root-stocks. The leaves are wrinkled or corrugated, the flowers showy and comprising all colours, the calyx five-parted, the corolla five-parted, irregular tubular, the stamens two or four, the fifth, needed to establish symmetry with the lobes of calyx and corolla, being traceable in a rudimentary state. These herbs come near to the bignoniads and the broom-rapes, but have no proper alliance with them. They are mostly tropical; though widely scattered, comparatively few are of any importance in the arts.

CORONILLA, from corona, a crown or garland. N.O., Leguminosoe or Fabaceae. LINNAEAN: 17, Diadelphia; 4, Decandria.--The immense order of fabaceous plants, formerly known as the Papilionaceae, or butterfly flowers, is of great importance in all the ways in which plants "come home to us." They supply many kinds of food and medicine, materials for the manufacturer, fine features in scenery, and gay flowers in the garden. When the bees "hum about globes of clover and sweet peas" they tell us in glad language that the butterfly flowers are prolific of honey, and they show how perseverance overcomes obstacles, for if the bees cannot force their way into the flowers they gnaw holes in them and thus secure the sweet booty. There are about 467 genera and 6,500 species of papilionaceous plants, and they range in stature and importance from the alpine oxytropis, three inches high, to the gigantic and gorgeous amherstia of the Indian forests and the locust-trees of the western continent, some of which Martius has estimated to be as old as the time of Homer or earlier. The typical flower and fruit are well known, and the common pea represents the order admirably. But the exceptions to the typical style are numerous. However, this curious fact comes into the story, that it is quite unusual for a truly leguminous plant to depart from the type in both flowers and fruits; it is the rule that if the flowers change the pods remain, and vice versa. Another common character is the divided leaf; but to this also many exceptions occur. The first point, however, that should have attention in the study of this order is the construction of the flower, which offers its own peculiar commentary on the Darwinian doctrine that requires flowers to be fertilised with pollen not of their own producing, or, in other words, the doctrine that degeneracy must follow upon self-fertilisation. Generally speaking, no doubt, they are self-fertilised. This order is prolific of flowers, but very few double flowers occur; those we call to mind at the moment are Genista tinctoria, Spartium junceum, Uler Europaeus, Lotus corniculatus, Orobus vernus, and Wistaria sinensis, the last producing occasionally two ovaries.

CROWN IMPERIAL, or FRITILLARIA. The disposition of the flowers explains the familiar name. The botanical name is from fritillus, a chess-board, in allusion to the chequered colouring of some species, more especially F. meleagris. N.O., Liliaceoe. LINNAEAN: 6, Hexandria; 1, Monogynia.--To say that the fritillary is a liliaceous plant is like saying it is a vegetable plant, for the lily family is so vast that this comparatively humble flower seems lost in it. There are nearly 150 genera and quite 1,200 species of liliaceous plants, and they comprehend such diverse subjects as true lilies, tulips, dracaenas, aloes, squills, asparagus, onions, the New Zealand flax, and the Australian grass-tree. It will be seen, therefore, that the order comprises herbs, shrubs, and trees, with bulbous, tuberous, and fibrous roots, and of the most varying aspects imaginable. But they agree in having flowers in which calyx and corolla are generally confounded and coloured alike, the flowers being usually six-divided with six stamens and a three-celled ovary. It is a magnificent family that no botanist has studied sufficiently, and that will surely be some day broken up and put in order, for it cannot be doubted that as it now stands it is made up of incongruities. The position of the fritillary in the order is with the lilies and tulips, to which it is obviously allied by the form of the flowers and the herbaceous growth and bulbous root.

AGERATUM, from a combination of a, the privative, and geras, old, meaning a plant ever young, in allusion to the fact that the flowers do not change colour with age. N.O., Composites, or Asteraceoe. LINNAEAN: 19, Syngenesia; 1, AEqualis.

HAWKWEED, or HIERACIUM. The botanical name bears the same mysterious relation to the employment of the plant in aid of the eyesight. LINUM.

DIANTHUS, from dios, divine, and anthos, flower, the divine flower, or flower of the gods. N.O., Caryophyllaceoe. LINNAEAN: 10, Decandria; 4, Pentagynia-- the genera number 53, and the species 1,055, in Lindley's estimate. It is interesting to make note of the characters of those that lie far apart from the dianthus, as the silene, saponaria, spergula, and arenaria. A cerastium, for example, is a member of the order, and so also is a stellaria, or chickweed. But the relations are easily recognised in the opposite and entire leaves on stems with tumid nodes, and the general fashion of the flower. The nearest alliance of the caryophyllaceous plants is with the purslanes, which have unsymmetrical flowers.