Botany for Ladies: or, A Popular Introduction to the Natural System of Plants, According to the Classification of De Candolle.Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Science
Botany for Ladies: or, A Popular Introduction to the Natural System of Plants, According to the Classification of De Candolle.
Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Botany; Plants -- Classification
There are several kinds of Nelumbium, one of which, a native of
America, has double yellow flowers; and they all require a stove in
England.
ORDER X. SARRACENIEÆ.—THE SIDE-SADDLE PLANT.
There is only one genus in this order, which can never be mistaken
for any other, from the pitcher-shaped petioles of its leaves, and
its singular flowers. It is a native of Canada, but it rarely flowers
without a stove in England. It is a dwarf plant, and it is thus easily
distinguished from the Chinese Pitcher plant, which grows eight or ten
feet high, and which belongs to quite a different order.
ORDER XI. PAPAVERACEÆ.—THE POPPY TRIBE.
This tribe contains several genera, all of which have a thick glutinous
juice when broken, which poisons by stupifying. The genera most common
in British gardens are Papaver, the Poppy; Argemone, the Prickly Poppy;
Meconopsis, the Welsh Poppy; Sanguinaria, Blood-root; Eschscholtzia;
Hunnemania; Rœmeria; Glaucium, Horned Poppy; Chelidonium, Greater
Celandine or Swallow-wort; Hypecoum; Platystemon, and Platystigma. Most
of these plants are either annual, or last only two or three years, and
they have all very handsome flowers, which are generally large and of
showy colours.
[Illustration: FIG. 111.—FLOWER, LEAF, AND SEED-VESSEL OF THE COMMON
POPPY.]
The common Corn Poppy (_Papaver Rhœas_) has a showy flower, the corolla
of which consists of four very large scarlet petals, the outer two
much exceeding the others in size (see _a_ in _fig._ 111). The calyx
is green, and it is divided into only two sepals, (see _b_,) which
fall off soon after the expansion of the flower. The petals are all
curiously crumpled in the bud, and they present quite a wrinkled
appearance when the flowers are first opened. The stamens are very
numerous, and the anthers, which are black, are of the kind called
_innate_; that is, the filament is only attached to them at the lower
part (_c_). The seed-vessel of the Corn Poppy is, when ripe, a dry
leathery capsule (_d_) with numerous angles, each angle indicating a
carpel; for the capsule of the Poppy, though one-celled when ripe,
consists, in fact, of a number of carpels grown together. The remains
of these imperfect carpels are perceptible in the little valves shown
at _f_, which open at the top of each to discharge the seed when it is
ripe; and in the slightly-peaked cover (_e_), which consists of as many
stigmas grown together as there appear to have been carpels. When the
capsule is cut open (as shown in the capsule at _g_, from which the
fourth part has been removed), remains of the carpels will be found in
several projections from the sides, which partially divide the inside
of the capsule into several imperfect cells, in which the young seeds
are formed; though none of these portions reach the centre. The ovules,
when first formed in the ovary, are attached to these projections,
which are called parietal placentæ; but as the seeds ripen they become
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