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Synopsis (Notes which follow)

THE notes which follow are on the same plan as in the synopsis of the First Series. In the light sketches of which the work consists scientific details would be out of place, and yet may sometimes be desired by the reader. By bringing together, apart from the descriptions of the plates, a few elementary particulars of the relationships of the plants figured, as well as of their structure and uses, this synopsis may serve some useful purpose, although it is made as brief and unobtrusive as possible.

MALOPE, from malos, soft, in allusion to the texture of the leaves and the emollient properties of the plants. NATURAL ORDER, Malvaceoe. LINNAEAN: 16, Monadelphia; 8, Polyandria. --The mallows are endogenous plants, comprising herbs, shrubs, and trees, with simple leaves which are usually lobed, and with showy flowers which, with very few exceptions, have five sepals and five petals. The recognition of mallow words by the beginner in botany is extremely easy, as the family likeness is preserved all through in a conspicuous way. The manner in which the flowers are spirally twisted before they expand is peculiar, and the union of the filaments of the stamens into a tube which sheathes the style is equally peculiar and characteristic. The ovary consists of numerous carpels arranged in a whorl around a central axis; they are one-celled; the seeds are somewhat three-sided, and are sometimes covered with a cottony down. In this family we find the mallow, the hibiscus, the hollyhock, the cotton plant, the sida, and the abutilon, all more or less "familiar" flowers. The silk cotton tree (Bombax) is closely related to the mallows, although properly placed in a separate order. It is from its seed-vessel that the soft fibre is derived, precisely as in the common cotton (Gossypium), which is strictly malvaceous.

ROSA, from rhod, red, is par excellence the name of a red flower; and it follows that rhododendron means a red-flowering tree. A very considerable proportion of the plants that are classed with the roses have white flowers, and thus the term is enlarged in its purport and when considered scientifically loses all its relationship to colour. N. O., Rosaceoe. LINNAEAN: 12, Icosandria; 1, Polygynia.--The roseworts have distinct prevailing characters by means of which they may, for the most part, be readily recognised by the student of botany, but a few genera will, perhaps, occasion momentary perplexity. Rosaceous plants are herbs, shrubs, or trees; they have leaves simple and leaves compound, as, for example, the apple and pear have simple leaves, and the rose, the spiraea, the strawberry, and the potentilla usually have compound leaves. The flowers are mostly hermaphrodite; but exceptions occur, as, for example, in some kinds of strawberries, in which the male and female flowers are on separate plants. A common character is to be found in the regularity of the flowers, which, however various under cultivation, may be described as usually composed of five sepals and five petals, with stamens indefinite in number, inserted with the petals. The fruits are more various than the flowers. In the rose it is a "hep" or berry, in the apple it is a "pome," in the strawberry and raspberry it is a swollen receptacle in which the seeds are embedded. For the determination of rosaceous plants the flower is of the first importance; but it is no easy matter to determine them. An apple-tree, a bramble-bush, a meadow-sweet, and a cherry are all of them rosaceous plants, and perfectly wholesome, casually considered, although from a very considerable number of them we may obtain that mostly deadly of poisons--prussic acid. The most important of the rosaceous plants are our hardy fruits, comprising the apple, pear, plum, cherry, peach, almond, strawberry, raspberry, bramble, and sloe. But these, though known as "fruits," are widely separated in the order, the pomes being so far removed from the berries that they might well be classed in separate orders. Interesting plants for the wayside botanist are the agrimony and the potentilla, which do not readily declare themselves as rosaceous. As for the true roses, they are unmistakable, and as types of the order they are not less important than as types of beauty.

CLEMATIS, from klema, a vine, or climber. From the same root we have in Dutch, climbop, the ivy, a very picturesque though strictly classic name. N.O., Ranunculaceoe. LINNAEAN: 13, Polyandria; 6, Polygynia.--The clematis section of crow-foots stands far apart in all its prominent characters from the buttercups and anemones that are classed in the same order. It agrees with them in the possession of an acrid juice which produces inflammation when applied to the skin, and if taken internally is irritant and may prove fatally poisonous. In the buttercup we see the leaves placed alternately, and their bases sheathe the stem; in the clematis the leaves are opposite, and do not sheathe the stem. In the insertion of the stamens on the receptacle all the members of this order agree. A large proportion of the species of clematis are climbing shrubs of temperate climes, a few are herbaceous, and all are ornamental, even our wilding of the hedgerows, the traveller's-joy, or Clematis vitalba, being extremely elegant, if not so showy as the exotic species that are now so much cultivated.