The last and highest group of the _Choripetalæ_, the _Calycifloræ_, embraces a very large assemblage of familiar plants, divided into eight orders and thirty-two families. With few exceptions, the floral axis grows up around the ovary, carrying the outer floral leaves above it, and the ovary appears at the bottom of a cup around whose edge the other parts of the flower are arranged. Sometimes, as in the fuchsia, the ovary is grown to the base of the cup or tube, and thus looks as if it were outside the flower. Such an ovary is said to be "inferior" in distinction from one that is entirely free from the tube, and thus is evidently within the flower. The latter is the so-called "superior" ovary. The carpels are usually united into a compound pistil, but may be separate, as in the stonecrop (Fig. 111, _E_), or strawberry (Fig. 114, _C_). The first order of the _Calycifloræ_ (_Umbellifloræ_) has the flowers small, and usually arranged in umbels, _i.e._ several stalked flowers growing from a common point. The ovary is inferior, and there is a nectar-secreting disc between the styles and the stamens. Of the three families, the umbel-worts or _Umbelliferæ_ is the commonest. The flowers are much alike in all (Fig. 110, _A_, _B_), and nearly all have large, compound leaves with broad, sheathing bases. The stems are generally hollow. So great is the uniformity of the flowers and plant, that the fruit (Fig. 110, _D_) is generally necessary before the plant can be certainly recognized. This is two-seeded in all, but differs very much in shape and in the development of oil channels, which secrete the peculiar oil that gives the characteristic taste to the fruits of such forms as caraway, coriander, etc. Some of them, like the wild parsnip, poison hemlock, etc., are violent poisons, while others like the carrot are perfectly wholesome. The wild spikenard (_Aralia_) (Fig. 110, _F_), ginseng, and the true ivy (_Hedera_) are examples of the _Araliaceæ_, and the various species of dogwood (_Cornus_) (Fig. 110, _J-N_) represent the dogwood family (_Corneæ_). The second order (_Saxifraginæ_) contains eight families, including a number of common wild and cultivated plants. The true saxifrages are represented by several wild and cultivated species of _Saxifraga_, the little bishop's cap or mitre-wort (_Mitella_) (Fig. 111, _D_), and others. The wild hydrangea (Fig. 111, _F_) and the showy garden species represent the family _Hydrangeæ_. In these some of the flowers are large and showy, but with neither stamens nor pistils (neutral), while the small, inconspicuous flowers of the central part of the inflorescence are perfect. In the garden varieties, all of the flowers are changed, by selection, into the showy, neutral ones. The syringa or mock orange (_Philadelphus_) (Fig. 111, _I_), the gooseberry, and currants (_Ribes_) (Fig. 111, _A_), and the stonecrop (_Sedum_) (Fig. 111, _E_) are types of the families _Philadelpheæ_, _Ribesieæ_, and _Crassulaceæ_.