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
Weedy plants, containing among other genera, Knot-grass (_Illecebrum_),
and Strapwort (_Corrigiola_). The new order Scleranthaceæ has been
separated from this; and it takes its name from the British weed,
Knawel (_Scleranthus_).
ORDER XCI.—CRASSULACEÆ.—THE HOUSELEEK TRIBE.
The common House-leek (_Sempervivum tectorum_) grows, as is well known,
on the tiles of houses, or on walls, where there does not appear a
single particle of earth to nourish its roots. The leaves are, however,
so contrived as to form a cluster of flat scaly circles, and thus
to shade and keep moist the roots beneath them. The flowers, which
are produced on a tall flower-stem rising from the leaves, are pink,
and usually consist of a green calyx, cut into twelve segments, and
a corolla of twelve petals, with twelve stamens and twelve carpels,
which spread out like a star in the middle of the flower. The number
of petals, &c., is by no means constant, as it varies from six to
twenty; but the other parts of the flower vary in the same manner,
and always agree with each other, except as regards the stamens,
which are sometimes twice the number of the petals, and arranged in
two series, those in one series being abortive. At the base of each
carpel is a kind of scale or gland, and this is the case with most
of the genera included in the order. There are several species of
Sempervivum, natives of the Canary Isles, which are very ornamental,
and which have yellow flowers; but this genus, and that of Sedum, the
Stone-crop, have been lately remodelled by Mr. Philip Barker Webb, and
some new genera formed out of them. The principal other genera in the
order are Crassula and Kalosanthes; the latter having been formed out
of the former, and including those species of Crassula which have a
tube-shaped corolla, with a spreading limb, divided into five segments,
while the flowers of those species which have been left in Crassula
have five distinct petals. All the plants belonging to the order have
succulent leaves; and in all of them the number of the petals, sepals,
and carpels, is the same, and of stamens either the same, or twice as
many. In the common Houseleek, the anthers sometimes produce seeds
instead of pollen.
ORDER XCII.—FICOIDEÆ.—THE FIG-MARIGOLD TRIBE.
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