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
The principal genera included in this order are Pittosporum,
Billardiera and Sollya, all resinous shrubs, with alternate leaves
without stipules, and the sepals and petals, each five in number, and
laid over each other like scales in the bud. The seeds are numerous,
and immersed in fibrous pulp. The commonest species of Pittosporum is
_P. Tobira_, a native of China, easily known by its thick leathery
leaves, the midribs of which are strongly marked, and whitish. The
flowers are erect, and produced in cymes or heads; and the petals are
united into a tube with a spreading limb. The capsule is one-celled,
and two or three valved, with an imperfect dissepiment in the centre
of each valve; and the seeds are numerous, and buried in a resinous
fibrous pulp. The Billardieras are generally climbing shrubs, with pale
greenish bell-shaped, and almost erect flowers, which are produced
singly or in pairs, and which have the tips of their petals turned
back. The fruit is a fleshy berry, with a shining skin of a deep blue,
and it is called the Apple Berry in Australia, of which country the
species are natives. This fruit is said to be eaten in Australia, but
it seems difficult to imagine how this can be the case; as though
the outer part of the berry is of a soft spongy nature, it is dry and
insipid; and there is no internal pulp, for the seeds lie loose in the
cells. In _Sollya heterophylla_ the flowers are drooping, on long and
very slender pedicels, and they are produced in cymes. The corolla is
campanulate, with the tips of the petals not recurved, and the anthers
are much shorter than in Billardiera. The fruit is a soft fleshy berry,
divided into two cells, each containing two rows of seeds immersed in
pulp, and when cut open, it smells strongly of turpentine. The plant
generally called _Sollya linearis_ has a dry and leathery pericardium;
and for this reason and on account of the spreading of its anthers,
it was placed by Mr. Cunningham in a new genus, which he called
_Cheiranthera._
ORDER XXV. FRANKENIACEÆ.—THE FRANKENIA TRIBE.
The genus Frankenia consists principally of the British weeds called
Sea Heath; and the other genera included in the order are seldom seen
in British gardens, from the seeds which have been imported seldom
arriving in a state fit for vegetation.
ORDER XXVI.—CARYOPHYLLACEÆ—THE CARNATION TRIBE.
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