JC-NRLF 
 
 5M 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
FIRST STEPS 
 
 IN 
 
 GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 BY MRS. CHAELES TOMLINSON. 
 
 PART IV. 
 THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
 
 PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OP 
 
 THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, 
 
 APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 
 
 CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE ; 
 
 SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORIES: 
 
 77, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS } 
 
 4, ROYAL EXCHANGE ; 48, PICCADILLY J 
 
 AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 New York : Pott, Young, & Co. 
 
WYMAtf AJO> SONS, PRINTKKS, GREAT QUEt^i 
 UifOOLH'H-INN FlJilfe, W.C. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 CONVERSATION L FLOWEKLESS PLANTS. Sea-weeds Mushrooms- 
 Lichens .--.! 
 
 IL Mosses and Ferns 23 
 
 1IL FLOWERING PLANTS. ENDOGENS: Grasses, 
 
 Sedges, &c. 36 
 
 M IV. Palm, Amaryllis, Iris, Plantain, Ginger, 
 
 Arrow-root, Orchis, Kush, Autumn Crocus, 
 and Lily Tribes ... - - - 49 
 
 V. EXOGENS: Pine, Yew, Beef- wood, Willow, Nettle, 
 
 Hemp, Mulberry, and Plane Tribes f 7 
 
 K VL Spurgewort, Mastwort, Walnut, Nut- 
 meg, Cucumber, Begonia, Papaw, Passion- 
 flower, Violet, Tamarisk, and Houseleek 
 Tribes 96 
 
 u VIL Cistus, Cruciferous, Mignonette, Cotton, 
 
 Nasturtium, Lime, Milkwort, and Soapwort 
 Tribes 11 
 
 ^ V11L Ranunculus, Poppy, Fumitory, Sun-dew, 
 
 Barberry, and Vine Tribes .... 144 
 
 M37716O 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGl 
 
 CONVERSATION IX. EXOGENS : Heath, Rue, Flax, Balsam, Geranium, 
 Wood-sorrel, Clove, Buckwheat, Goosefoot, 
 Leguminous, Almond, Apple, and Rose 
 
 Tribes 158 
 
 9 X. Saxifrage, Hydrangea, Loose-strife, Elm, 
 
 Buckthorn, Spindle, Gentian, Ebony, Holly, 
 Nightshade, Olive, Convolvulus, Dodder, To* 
 bacco, Thrift, Plantain, Primrose, Jasmin, 
 Borage, Labiate, Verbena, Figwort, Butter- 
 wort, Campanula, and Scabious Tribes - 184 
 
 XI. Composite, Evening Primrose, Myrtle, 
 
 Cactus, Currant, Syringa, Cranberry, Coffee, 
 Honeysuckle, and Galium Tribes - - - 206 
 
 XII. Umbelliferous, Ivy, Cornel, Witch-hazel, 
 
 Sandalwort, Loranth, and Birthwort Tribes - 222 
 
'FIRST STEPS IN GENEEAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Ftgetable Ittng&om. 
 
 CONVERSATION I. 
 
 SEA-WEEDS MUSHROOMS- LICHENS. 
 
 It was a lovely April morning; the sun shone 
 brightly after heavy showers ; the birds sang joy- 
 ously among the trees, and scattered rain-drops 
 as they flitted from bough to bough : every plant 
 was laden with moisture, and the thickly-blos- 
 somed cherry on the garden-wall had showered 
 down its beautiful petals under the influence of 
 the driving rain. The gravel-path afforded the 
 only dry walking ground, and here might be seen 
 three young folks, newly escaped from their morn- 
 4. B 
 
2 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ing studies, and now driving the hoop, or tossing 
 the ball with much glee. 
 
 An hour quickly passed away in this manner ; 
 but when their father came out to take his morn- 
 ing walk, they hastily laid aside their games, and 
 begged that they might accompany him. 
 
 "The roads are too wet for you at present," 
 said he, " but as you seem tired of play, I will 
 spend a few minutes with you before I take my 
 walk, and we will see if the garden affords an 
 example of the lowest order of plants ; for I have 
 not forgotten my promise to give you the same 
 kind of sketch of the Vegetable Kingdom which I 
 did last autumn of the Animal Kingdom." 
 
 "Oh, thank you thank you, papa/' said all 
 three, and Henry added " that he thought it must 
 be the very best time to learn about plants, now 
 they were all springing up afresh, and now the 
 crocuses and snowdrops and violets were so beau- 
 tiful." He was surprised, however, to see that his 
 father passed by all the flower-beds, and went to 
 a part of the garden where nothing seemed to be 
 growing. There, under the shelter of a wall, and 
 where the path was very damp, he began to take 
 up a portion of the green coating which covered it. 
 
LOWEST FORMS OF VEGETABLES. 3 
 
 "What are you going to do with that green 
 stuff, papa?" said Eobert; "there is plenty of it 
 on the glass of the hot-house ; and there was a great 
 deal on the rocks last summer, close by the sea." 
 
 " I am going to how it to you under the micro- 
 scope, as an example of the lowest stage of vege- 
 table life. Some of the plants of this order come 
 so near the lowest tribes of animals, that even the 
 best naturalists find it difficult to decide between 
 them." 
 
 " Why do they not watch them very closely, to 
 see whether they move ?" asked Mary. 
 
 " Even that will not decide the matter, for some 
 of these plants move about in water by means of 
 little cilia, or hairs, exactly like certain animals." 
 
 "That is very odd," said Henry; "how can 
 people possibly find out which is which ?" 
 
 "The only certain distinction which I have 
 heard of is one that can only be proved by scien- 
 tific persons ; it is the presence of starch, which is 
 found in many of these tribes, and which is known 
 to be a vegetable and not an animal production. 
 Still, there are mysteries in this subject known 
 only to that Infinite Being who planned and 
 executed the wonderful scheme of creation." 
 
4 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "1 never see any of that green slime," said 
 Mary, "except in very wet places." 
 
 'And for a good reason," replied her father. 
 " All the plants of this lowest race are inhabitants 
 of the water, both fresh and salt ; and when a 
 path becomes soaked with rain, as this is, and the 
 water settles for some time on the surface, then do 
 these minute plants spring up, giving a greenish 
 tinge to the ground." 
 
 " And what is the name of these water plants ?" 
 asked Henry. 
 
 " The great tribe to which they belong is that 
 of the ALG^E." 
 
 " Algae," said Mary, " is the word which mamma 
 wrote in our book of dried sea-weed, and I thought 
 it meant sea-plants." 
 
 " So it does ; but it also includes their fresh- 
 water relations, of which very many families are 
 of this slimy character, and inhabit still waters 
 and oozy places in the northern parts of the 
 world." 
 
 Henry took up a bit of the damp earth that 
 was covered with this green substance, and he 
 found that it fell to pieces very easily, and that 
 there were no roots to the tiny plants to bind it 
 
SEA-WEEDS. 5 
 
 together. His father told him that this tribe of 
 plants has been called BKITTLEWOKTS, on account 
 of their so easily breaking into fragments. 
 
 "There is another order of algae," he .continued, 
 " where many of the plants are red, violet, or olive, 
 instead of green, although they are found in fresh 
 as well as in salt water. They are called confervce, 
 and some are remarkable for the colour they give 
 to the water. The Ked Sea appears to have derived 
 its name from the multitude of minute confervas 
 often seen floating in its waters. A French writer* 
 tells us that as he entered this sea by the straits of 
 Babelmandel, in July, 1843, he was astonished to 
 find the waters stained red, as far as the eye could 
 reach. Collecting some of the water, he found it 
 to be covered with a thin layer of a brickdust 
 colour. This layer changed in the course of the 
 day to a deep-violet colour, but the water itself 
 was tinged with a beautiful rose-pink." 
 
 "I am glad they found out what it was," said 
 Henry, "for it must have looked very much like a 
 sea of blood." 
 
 " Other families of these plants make the water 
 green, or brown, or violet," said his father; "so 
 
 * Dupont. 
 
FIRST STEPS IK GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 that we need not be surprised at any wonderful 
 stories we read about the colour of the sea. It 
 also sometimes happens that when meadows are 
 long under water, they are covered to the depth 
 of an inch with an entangled layer of similar 
 plants, almost like woollen cloth, and which is 
 commonly called water-flannel." 
 
 " Are these plants of any use ?" asked Eobert. 
 
 "I do not know of any use in the smaller 
 species ; but some of the larger confervae, called 
 Lover, are eaten by many persons, either stewed 
 or pickled. Yet we may be quite sure that it is 
 for some wise purpose that God has filled the seas 
 and rivers with such multitudes of these plants. 
 Another order of algae contains the different kinds 
 of FUCUS, or Sea-wrack) some of which are used 
 as food by the poorer classes of Ireland, Scotland, 
 Iceland, &c. Some are also employed as manure, 
 and are of importance in the manufacture of glass 
 and of soap, on account of the quantity of impure 
 soda (called kelp) which is obtained from them. 
 Those large, dark-looking weeds, with air-bladders 
 in their leaves, which you called your weather- 
 glass, were some of the common kinds of sea- 
 wrack." 
 
FUCUS, OR SEA-WRACK. 7 
 
 " Those were the weeds you said were useful in 
 medicine, papa." 
 
 Fucus Canaliculatus. 
 
 " Yes ; they contain iodine, which is particu- 
 
8 FIRST STEPS IN" GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 larly useful in those swellings of the throat called 
 goitre. In some parts of South America where 
 this disease is common, the inhabitants chew the 
 stems of these weeds, and call them by a name 
 which means ' goitre-stick.' " 
 
 " Some of the stems are very thick," said Mary, 
 " and one very tough sort, I remember, you called 
 sea-girdles" 
 
 "Did I tell you of the odd use these girdles 
 are sometimes put to? They are cut in pieces 
 about four inches long ; and while they are fresh, 
 the hilt of a pruning-knife is stuck into each 
 piece. As the stem dries, it clings closely to the 
 hilt and forms a good and strong handle, and from 
 its withered and brown appearance it looks very 
 much like buck's-horn, especially when tipped with 
 metal. Thus a number of knives can be easily and 
 cheaply finished off." 
 
 The children thought the sea-wracks very use- 
 ful weeds, especially when they found, that if fuel 
 is scarce, they can be dried and used for that 
 purpose ; that the young shoots are eaten in Edin- 
 burgh, as "tangles," and that cattle will thrive 
 on the plants when boiled. Robert also remem- 
 bered that it was from the air-bladders of one of 
 
AIR-BLADDERS IN SEA-WEEDS. 9 
 
 these weeds * that lie made such famous whistles 
 when he was by the sea-side. 
 
 " What are the air - bladders for ? " asked 
 Mary. 
 
 " No doubt to support the weeds on the water ; 
 for some of them are of enormous size and length. 
 Dr. Hooker saw them high up in the South Seas, 
 growing in large patches wherever the water was 
 free of icebergs ; the plants were several hundred 
 feet long, and could scarcely have been supported 
 without air-bladders. Around the Falkland Islands 
 they were also very abundant, and sometimes 
 clasped the rocks, and became tree-like in their 
 form, the stems being thicker than a man's thigh, 
 and the long leaves drooping like the branches of 
 a willow. Dr. Hooker tells us that no one who 
 has not actually seen it can form an idea of the 
 amount of life which is nourished and housed by 
 one of these tree sea-weeds. Various kinds of 
 worms, small sponges, corals, crabs, eggs of fish, 
 and myriads of shells, with their inhabitants, find 
 a home there, while the lesser sea-weeds cling to 
 it as moss clings to a large tree." 
 
 "How very different the dark-looking, leathery 
 * Fucus nodosus. 
 
10 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 sea-wracks are from my beautiful pink sea-weeds !" 
 said Mary. 
 
 " Your pretty specimens," said her father, " be- 
 long to a tribe called KOSE-TANGLES, which are 
 most of them rose-coloured or purple. Some of 
 the ocean caves are quite lined with dark-red 
 weeds of this description. Rose-tangles are not 
 only pretty, but useful ; a nourishing jelly is made 
 
 from one of them, improperly called Carrageen 
 moss ; a substitute for tobacco is found in another, 
 called dulse, which is washed in fresh water, dried 
 
ROSE-TANGLES. 
 
 11 
 
 in the sun, and then rolled up for use, by the Irish 
 and Scotch. Dulse is also stewed with milk, or 
 eaten raw with fish. That very bright-coloured 
 
 FINK EA-W'EKI>. 
 
 (Plocamium coccineum.') 
 
 weed, in your book is a great favourite every- 
 where, and may be easily known from other fami- 
 lies in this tribe by the way in which the branches 
 are divided. Here, also, we find the beautiful 
 corallines, of which we have so many specimens 
 on our shores. There is a small kind of rose- 
 tangle, which is invaluable to the Chinese as a 
 
12 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 glue and varnish. About 27,000 pounds weight 
 of this plant are annually brought into Canton, 
 and sold at sixpence or eighteen pence the pound. 
 
 With this they varnish the paper for their lanterns, 
 and give the beautiful gloss to their silks ; and it 
 seems likewise to be the principal ingredient in a 
 celebrated transparent composition which they 
 spread out over slips of bamboo, and use instead 
 of glass in windows, the bamboo slips being 
 arranged in the manner of a frame." 
 
PLANTS OF STAGNANT WATERS. 13 
 
 Mary was delighted to find that the beautiful 
 rose-tangles served so many useful purposes in 
 the world ; and she was amused to hear that the 
 eatable birds'-nests, which her brothers had so 
 often laughed at the Chinese for being fond of, 
 are supposed to be made of some of these weeds ; 
 so that, after all, in devouring the nests, the people 
 are, perhaps, only eating a jelly, such as we get 
 from the carrageen and other plants of this family. 
 Her father told her that the remaining alga3 which 
 he had to mention were weeds of ill odour, living 
 in stagnant water, either fresh or salt, and having 
 their stems often coated over with carbonate of 
 lime. They are upright tubes, with whorls of 
 smaller tubes surrounding the stem, and are called 
 Gharas. 
 
 The children were much pleased with what they 
 had heard of the great tribe of plants that inhabits 
 the waters ; and Mary thought it would be a won- 
 derful sight if any one could look down into the 
 deep deep sea, where so many beautiful things are 
 growing. 
 
 "There are no storms there," she said, "for 
 I have learned some pretty lines that tell me 
 so. 
 
14 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 " * The water is calm and still below, 
 
 For the winds and waves are absent there, 
 And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 
 
 In the motionless fields of upper air ; 
 There, with its waving blade of green, 
 
 The sea-flag streams through the silent water, 
 And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 
 
 To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter. 
 There, with a slight and easy motion, 
 
 The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea, 
 And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean 
 
 Are bending like corn on the upland lea.' " 
 
 During the foregoing conversation the party 
 had approached the gate of the orchard, where, in 
 summer, a few mushrooms occasionally sprang up. 
 "In a few weeks," said their father, "we shall 
 have to set out for yonder pastures, on our mush- 
 room expedition. After these rains, it is likely 
 that they will be numerous ; for these plants, like 
 the algse, are very fond of water, though they do 
 not live entirely in it." 
 
 "We must be careful what we gather," said 
 Henry, " for some kinds are poisonous." 
 
 " The FUNGUS tribe, which includes our common 
 mushroom, is a very curious and wonderful race 
 of vegetables," said his father, " springing up with 
 a rapidity unknown in other plants, and not un- 
 

 THE FUNGUS TRIBE. 15 
 
 frequently growing many inches in the space of a 
 night, especially after storms*" 
 
 "The large puff-ball which we found in the 
 meadow was a fungus," said Henry ; " and so, I 
 suppose, are all the plants we call toad-stools : and 
 so are the beautiful orange-coloured velvety spots 
 we sometimes find on old fences." 
 
 "Every kind of mouldiness, or mildew, wher- 
 ever we may find it," added his father, " also pro- 
 ceeds from the growth of innumerable small fungi." 
 
 " Then the mould I saw in the cellar, and that 
 on my cup of paste," said Henry, "must be of 
 this kind." 
 
 "And that on mamma's preserves," said Mary, 
 " and on the bread when it is very stale. I sup- 
 pose we may make these plants grow when we 
 like : it is only to keep our food a long time, and 
 it will be covered with them. Do they grow from 
 seed, or what brings them ?" 
 
 " That is one of the mysteries we cannot pene- 
 trate," said her father. "We cannot tell how it 
 is, that in the dark or in the light, in the open air 
 or in the closet, these plants spring up. Whether 
 their seeds are so light as to be carried about 
 invisibly, and lodged in such various places, or 
 
1G FIRST STEPS IX GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 whether fungi are merely different states of decay- 
 ing vegetable matter, it is quite impossible to say ; 
 but this we know, that in a single fungus, a 
 botanist (M. Fries) reckoned ten millions of seeds, 
 or sporules, as they are called ; and these, which 
 are carried about like thin smoke, may be conveyed 
 by insects, elasticity, adhesion, or other causes, into 
 remote places, and spring up when they find a 
 substance suited to their growth." 
 
 "How could any one reckon ten millions?" 
 asked Henry. " I have heard that it would take 
 about a fortnight to count one million." 
 
 "In reckoning such minute substances, we do 
 not, of course, count one by one throughout, but 
 after finding out how many there are in a certain 
 space, we multiply the others by them. Thus, if 
 I wished to reckon the sweet peas your mamma 
 is sowing in the garden, I would fill a small 
 measure with the seed, and if I found that it 
 contained two hundred seeds, I should afterwards 
 know that every time I filled it there would be 
 that number, or very nearly. Before we leave the 
 fungi, I must tell you that they are far more 
 numerous in many foreign countries than in our 
 own. In Australia, for instance, they are much 
 
EDIBLE FUNGI. If 
 
 used by the natives, and are also eagerly sought 
 after by the curious pouched animals of that land." 
 
 Mary asked, if any besides the common mush- 
 room were eaten in this country ; and her father 
 told her that two other families of fungi are much 
 esteemed, namely, " the Morel " and " the Truffle ;" 
 the former growing up in beech woods, in a mush- 
 room shape ; the latter, an underground produc- 
 tion, black and warty on the outside, but white 
 within. Truffle hunters are assisted by dogs, 
 whose keen scent enables them to find out the 
 places where the fungus is growing. 
 
 The children were also informed that the " dry 
 rot," which is often of serious consequence to 
 the timbers of ships and buildings, is a fungus; 
 also the blight in corn, and the diseases called 
 "smut," "ergot," and "rust;" likewise a blighted 
 appearance oil the leaves of some plants, such as 
 the dingy-red spots on the leaves of the pear-tree, 
 which are found to be caused by a small fungus 
 growing on the under side. 
 
 " How odd it is that one vegetable should grow 
 upon another in that way !" said Robert. 
 
 "You have seen many examples of it in the 
 LICHENS you are so fond of collecting," replied his 
 4. o 
 
18 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 father; "these, as you know, are very common 
 on trees as well as on buildings. They gain their 
 nourishment from the atmosphere, and not from 
 the material on which they grow ; therefore they 
 are not so injurious as the fungus, which is fed out 
 of the very substance of what it grows upon." 
 
 "How delighted we were," said Mary, "when 
 you first taught us to find lichens ! We had no 
 idea that the yellow and white patches on the 
 bark of the elm-trees, and the brown and gray 
 spots on the walls of our house, were all living 
 vegetables. And then, what beautiful pale gray 
 lichens we found on the church porch, and even 
 on the tombstones ! they were so flat and close to 
 the stone that they looked like stains." 
 
 "Without lichens," said her father, " our land- 
 scapes would lose much of their picturesque 
 beauty, and our ancient edifices much of their 
 venerable character. It is remarkable in large 
 and smoky cities, where lichens do not flourish, 
 how much less interesting is the appearance of the 
 old buildings. The harmonious colouring of these 
 little plants is there greatly missed." 
 
 " Are lichens of any use, papa ?" asked Eobert. 
 
 " They are of great use in several ways. They 
 
LICHENS: THEIR USES. 19 
 
 are the first plants to clothe the surface of bare 
 rocks ; and therefore they are the first vegetable 
 substances on newly-formed islands in the midst 
 of the ocean, thus preparing the way for higher 
 orders of plants, and finally for the abode of man. 
 Their domestic uses are of two kinds : some are 
 nourishing and medicinal in their properties, and 
 some are valuable in affording dyes. Several 
 species of lichen form the food of Canadian 
 hunters, and are called by them Tripe de RoeJie :* 
 these supplied our Arctic travellers, Franklin, 
 Kichardson, and Back, with their only means of 
 subsistence during a portion of the time spent in 
 exploring the frozen regions of the north. A 
 species called ' Iceland moss 'f furnishes a nutritive 
 jelly for invalids; another, known as 'Keindeer 
 moss 'J is the winter food of the reindeer of the 
 Laplanders. There is also a common lichen called 
 ' Lungs of the Oak/ which is used in Siberia for 
 giving a bitter to beer, and in this country as a 
 nourisliing diet for invalids. Several others are 
 said to possess medicinal qualities ; and one, called 
 by the Swedes Ulfmossa,\\ is believed by the people 
 
 * Gyrophoras. f Cetraria islandica. I Cenomyce rangiferina, 
 Sticta pulmonacea. \\ Evernia vulpina. 
 
20 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 to be poisonous to wolves. Chemists tell us that 
 lichens contain several peculiar bitter principles 
 
 " LTINGS OF THE OAK " LICHEN. 
 
 and colouring matters ; and many of the species 
 are rich in a substance called usnine, or usnic acid, 
 which is of a yellow colour, but changes by expo- 
 sure to the air, and by its various combinations 
 produces many of the beautiful colours observed in 
 lichens." 
 
 "And some of those are the colours used in 
 dyeing, I suppose," said Henry. 
 
 " The chief supply of dyeing-material is obtained 
 from a white or grayish lichen, growing abun- 
 
LICHENS: THEIR USES. 21 
 
 dantly in the Canary, Cape de Verd, and other 
 islands, and scantily in Guernsey and the isle of 
 Portland. It is the ' Orchella lichen/* from which 
 a colour is obtained which, when evaporated to 
 powder, is the deep-red substance sold in our shops 
 as cudbear. Prepared orchella is, however, usually 
 known by the name of archil, and is of a rich 
 crimson colour, bordering on violet. It is used 
 more frequently to give a rich bloom to other 
 colours than alone, and it is interesting to find 
 that a similar practice was adopted in the time of 
 Pliny, who, speaking of this moss as growing on 
 the rocks of Candia and Crete, mentions that the 
 dyers employed it to give the first tint or ground 
 colour to stuffs which were intended to be of a 
 costly purple. Several other lichens yield dyeing- 
 material, but the Eocella is the most important. 
 It is however fugitive and evanescent in its cha- 
 racter, as may be seen by the changes in litmus 
 paper, which is dyed with this substance." 
 
 " Why does Henry always look out for lichens 
 that have little cups or shields upon them ?" said 
 Robert. 
 
 "Because these shields contain the spores, or 
 
 * Jtocella tincioria. 
 
22 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 seeds, and the lichen is in perfection when so 
 adorned. Some of these shields, as you remember, 
 lie flat upon the lichen, others are elevated on 
 little stalks. They are always best developed in 
 places fully exposed to the light ; hence it is of 
 very little use to search for shield-bearing lichens 
 in shady groves or in the dark clefts of rocks. 
 You have proved how well lichens can be kept, 
 without the trouble in drying which you have 
 with other plants. Some of those in my cabinet 
 were gathered twelve years ago, and are very 
 little altered : and I have seen older collections in 
 fine preservation." 
 
OONVEKSATION II. 
 
 'MOSSES AOT> PERNS. 
 
 MARY had been arranging a cushion of moss on 
 a china dish, and sticking violets and primroses 
 among its delicate fibres. This had a pretty 
 effect, and her mamma praised her spring nosegay. 
 "Will you tell us, papa," said the little girl, 
 " something about these beautiful mosses, that are 
 so bright and green long before the leaves of the 
 trees are out ?" 
 
 " MOSSES," said her father, " are not so simple 
 in their structure as lichens, and therefore come 
 higher in the scale of vegetable life. There are 
 plants nearly related to them, called Liverworts, 
 which are of a somewhat fleshy substance, and 
 grow only in very damp places. You remember 
 finding a mass of green scales overlapping each 
 other on the damp earth near the pond ; that was 
 liverwort, and it is also to be found on trees in 
 shady and moist places. A very curious fact con- 
 nected with liverworts is, that in the little case 
 which contains the spores there is a spiral thread 
 
24 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 lying among them, or sometimes two twisted 
 together, and contained in a delicate transparent 
 tube. These threads have a strong elastic force, 
 and perhaps assist in dispersing the seed." 
 
 Henry asked why they were called liverworts, 
 and was told that they were formerly used in 
 liver complaints, and that one of them* is still 
 thought to be of some value in cases of dropsy. 
 
 "Mosses," said his father, "perform a similar 
 office to lichens in nature generally; preparing 
 waste and barren lands for higher vegetation, and 
 often existing on the limits of eternal snow. 
 
 SCALE-MOS6. 
 
 There are some curious little reddish or brown 
 
 mosses,! which cover the rocks like a mat in such 
 
 * Marchantia hemwphasrica. f Andrxa nimli*. 
 
MOSSES. 
 
 25 
 
 bleak spots, and bear their seed in tiny globes. 
 Each globe is made up of four valves, which split 
 open to let the seed escape, but are still held 
 together at the top by a very small lid, which does 
 not fall off. These little plants are called ' Split- 
 mosses/ There are others, called ' Scale-mosses,'* 
 not much unlike these in the shape of the seed- 
 vessel, but having no lid, so that the four valves 
 burst quite asunder when the seed is ripe. 
 
 ''The mosses in Mary's nosegay belong to a 
 vast family, called ( Urn-mosses ;' their seed-vessels 
 
 being urn-shaped. You have often seen on the 
 garden wall small tufts of moss with a number of 
 
 * Jungermannia resupinata. 
 
26 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 slender stalks rising from them, each stalk support- 
 ing one of these little urns." 
 
 " yes, papa," said Mary ; " and I have looked 
 at them through Henry's little microscope, for 
 mamma told me they were pretty little cups with 
 lids to them. In some of them the lids had fallen 
 off, and I saw a number of teeth rising up round 
 the edge of the cup, like a beautiful fringe. And 
 mamma said, that if I counted those little teeth, I 
 should always find them to be four times four, 
 or four times eight, or four times some other 
 number." 
 
 "Yes; constantly a multiple of four; and all 
 this regular and beautiful apparatus for the pro- 
 tection of the minute spores or seeds which lie with- 
 in. These beautiful seed-vessels, as well as the leafy- 
 appearance of the stems in mosses, will show you 
 that they are considerably raised above lichens." 
 
 " And are they put to as many uses ?" asked 
 Henry. 
 
 "They are not. As far as the immediate 
 health and convenience of man are concerned, 
 mosses seem to be of little consequence, except 
 for the beautiful green carpet they spread under 
 his feet, in places where little else will grow. 
 
MOSSES. 
 
 27 
 
 Other moss-like plants are called 'Club-mosses/ 
 because their spore-cases are often collected into a 
 club-shaped body, not unlike a fir-cone. These 
 delight in moist and warm climates. Thus, you 
 see, there is great variety 
 in this humble family." 
 
 "Among them all," 
 said Mary, " what is that 
 very beautiful pale green 
 moss, which was sent 
 to mamma from Crow- 
 borough, in Sussex, with 
 such curious horns at the 
 ends of the branches ?" 
 
 " It is called < Stag's- 
 horn Moss,'* and is one 
 of the club-mosses I 
 have just referred to. 
 It is remarkable, not 
 only for its delicate 
 colour and branching 
 growth, but for con- 
 taining in its spore- 
 cases a fine powdery 
 
 * Lycopodium clavatum. 
 
 STAG S HOUX MOSS. 
 
28 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 matter which is highly inflammable, and is employed 
 under the name of Lycopodium, or Vegetable brim- 
 stone, in making fireworks, and in producing flashes 
 of light which feebly imitate lightning. It is also 
 used by the apothecary for rolling pills, which it pre- 
 serves from the effects of moisture. The whole plant 
 is emetic in its properties, as are some others of the 
 club-mosses. Woollen cloths boiled with lycopo- 
 diums acquire the property of becoming blue when 
 passed through a bath of Brazil wood. Club- 
 mosses are much more abundant in the moist, hot 
 climate of the tropics than in our temperate 
 region." 
 
 " What plants come next to the mosses ?" asked 
 Eobert. 
 
 " Near to mosses, but placed by some writers 
 below the split mosses, come those curious plants 
 called ' Horse-tails,'* which you see in ditches, and 
 often gather for the purpose of pulling apart the 
 numerous toothed divisions of the stem. These 
 plants are found in ditches and rivers in most parts 
 of the world. They are unimportant in a medical 
 point of view; but owing to their containing a 
 great quantity of silex, they are useful for polish- 
 * Equisetum, 
 
FERNS. 29 
 
 ing household utensils. The ashes of these plants 
 have been found by chemists to contain half their 
 weight of silica. Horse-tails and their allies of the 
 ditches are not far removed from FERNS, to which 
 great tribe I now lead you." 
 
 " I should not have thought it a great tribe/' 
 said Henry, "for we see very few ferns in our 
 walks, compared with other plants." 
 
 " That is true ; but we must not always judge 
 of a whole tribe of plants by what our own neigh- 
 bourhood, or even our own country affords. Ferns 
 in this country are leafy plants, with stems that 
 mostly creep along the surface of the earth, or 
 hide themselves beneath it ; but in tropical coun- 
 tries there are tree ferns, whose leafless trunks 
 rise to the height of thirty or forty feet., and send 
 out an elegant tuft of foliage at the top. And 
 although many of our woods and hedgebanks, as 
 well as our rocks and old walls, are ornamented 
 with very beautiful kinds of fern, yet these are 
 not to be compared to the ferns of the tropics for 
 number or variety. The island of Jamaica alone 
 is said to contain at least four times as many 
 different species as the whole of Great Britain, 
 and some of them growing to a majestic height." 
 
30 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " They may be very large and handsome," said 
 Mary, " but I cannot fancy anything more beauti- 
 ful than the fern we brought home from the 
 woods. We little thought, as we scrambled 
 
 through a mass of fern 
 leaves, that every one of 
 them was loaded with 
 hundreds of little seed- 
 vessels on the under 
 side. It was quite by 
 accident that I caught 
 sight of them, scattered 
 like little yellow beads 
 all over the back of 
 the leaf, or perhaps I 
 ought to call it the 
 branch, for there were 
 a great many small 
 leaves upon it." 
 
 " In ferns it is called 
 the frond, and according 
 to its shape, and the 
 arrangement of the 
 seeds, you may discover 
 
 THE LADY-FERN. 
 
THE LADY-FERN. 31 
 
 The large frond you brought from the woods has the 
 seeds clustered together, along the middle vein of 
 each leaflet. It is called ( Male Fern,'* on account 
 of its strong growth and hardy nature. A very 
 delicate and graceful species is called ' Lady Fern/ 
 while another is called ' Maiden-hair.' " , 
 
 Mary remembered some lines of Sir Walter 
 Scott's about the lady-fern, and she now repeated 
 them : 
 
 " Where the copse-wood is the greenest, 
 Where the fountain glistens sheenest, 
 Where the morning dew lies longest, 
 There the lady-fern grows strongest." 
 
 "The juices of several ferns," continued her 
 father, "have been used as medicine, and the 
 stems of others as food : but their ordinary uses 
 in this country are merely for thatching, or for 
 heating ovens, or for horse-litter. But there is 
 one thing I must not omit to say about the 
 foreign ferns. Do you remember, Henry, having 
 your curiosity excited by a picture of a * Scythian 
 lamb,' as it was called ?" 
 
 " yes, papa ; it was an odd-looking thing 
 
 * Aspidium Fttix, mas. 
 
32 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 half animal, half vegetable ; with four legs thai 
 were exactly like the stalks of a plant." 
 
 " That was nothing more than a woolly stemmed 
 fern, Barometz, common in the deserts of Scythia, 
 and which, when deprived of its leaves, and turned 
 upside down, is not much unlike a lamb, and has 
 been used to deceive simple people. Ferns are 
 altogether so curious and interesting, that I hope 
 you will one day make them a separate study ; 
 they are the highest forms of flowerless plants, 
 for you must have noticed that all the tribes we 
 have yet spoken of are without blossom of any 
 kind." 
 
 " How strange that they should have seeds, and 
 not flowers !" said Eobert. 
 
 " And that the seeds should grow in such odd 
 places," said Mary ; " some on the backs of the 
 leaves, and some in little cups, and some in urns, 
 and some in clubs." 
 
 " They are not true seeds, therefore you must 
 learn to call them spores. You must also 
 understand that these flowerless plants can bo 
 brought under two great divisions : first, those 
 simple plants in which there is no distinction 
 of leaf and stem ; and secondly, those plants, 
 
ARRANGEMENT OF FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 33 
 
 whose leaves and stems are quite distinct. Tell 
 me what you think must belong to the first 
 division." 
 
 " The green slime we saw in the garden," said 
 Robert, " for even through the microscope it only 
 looked like a bundle of threads." 
 
 " And perhaps the sea-weeds," said Mary, " for 
 some of them seem all stem, and some of them all 
 leaf, so that it would not be very easy to find out 
 a regular stem and leaf on the same plant." 
 
 " And I am sure the lichens must belong to the 
 first division," said Henry, " for they are leafy or 
 leathery all over, lying flat on the place where 
 they grow. Mushrooms have stems, but then they 
 have no leaves, so I suppose they must come in 
 the same division." 
 
 " You are right ; and having thus found out the 
 members of the first division, it follows, as a mat- 
 ter of course, that mosses and ferns come into the 
 second, for in all these plants leaf and stem are 
 perfectly distinct. In leaving these flowerless 
 plants we find the same thing occur, which we so 
 often noticed in rising from tribe to tribe of the 
 animal kingdom; I mean that the tribes blend 
 together in so gradual a manner, that we are sure 
 4. D 
 
34 FIEST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 to find a great likeness to the one we have left, in 
 that which conies immediately above it. Thus it 
 happens that the lowest of the flowering plants 
 look almost like flowering lichens, or mushrooms." 
 
 " Have we ever seen them ? " asked Mary. 
 
 "You have not, and perhaps you never may in 
 their own climate; for they are, I believe, wholly 
 confined to tropical countries. They are parasites 
 upon roots or trunks' of trees, and have no true 
 leaves, and very little stem : yet they have flowers 
 growing immediately from the branch of the tree, 
 and surrounded by scales, which take the place of 
 leaves." 
 
 " They must look as if they were the blossoms 
 of the tree itself," remarked Henry. 
 
 u They cannot be so mistaken/' replied his 
 father, "because in these parasites the whole plant 
 is of a uniform dull colour, either brown, yellow, 
 or purple. The scales that represent leaves, and 
 the fungous-like mass that sometimes forms a sort 
 of stem, is never green as in other plants. A giant 
 parasite of this race,* when in bud, is of the size 
 of an ordinary cabbage, and when in blossom 
 measures a yard across/' 
 
 * Eafflesia. 
 
A GIANT PARASITE. 35 
 
 " What an enormous blossom !" exclaimed Mary, 
 " I pity the tree that has to support it. You told 
 us one day that lazy men and women are called 
 ' parasites 'when they live at the expense of their 
 friends, without doing anything for their own sup- 
 port ; this immense flower must be a very expen- 
 sive parasite, and must wear out the poor tree very 
 soon." 
 
 " All these strange plants form a sort of inter- 
 mediate class between the flowerless and the 
 flowering ; and I have mentioned them to you to- 
 day, because I would not too- closely connect them 
 with the important division of the vegetable king- 
 dom which will form our next subject. 
 
CONVEESATION ILL 
 
 ENDOGENS. 
 
 GRASSES, SEDGES, &C. 
 
 BEFOKE their papa -was ready to tell them about 
 another division of plants, Mary and her brothers 
 repeated to each other what they could remember 
 about that which he had already spoken of; con- 
 taining, first, plants that have no flowers, and no 
 distinction of leaf and stem, as sea-weeds and 
 lichens ; secondly, those that have no flowers, but 
 distinct leaves and stems, as mosses and ferns; 
 and thirdly, such as have no true leaves or stems, 
 but perfect flowers, as that strange giant parasite 
 with blossoms a yard across. They were curious 
 to know what came next, and they were soon 
 satisfied, for their father came into the room with 
 a bundle of dried GRASSES in his hand, which had 
 been gathered when in blossom. 
 
 "I am obliged to be satisfied with these dry 
 specimens," he said, "for the spring grass is not 
 yet forward enough to give you a good idea of 
 this interesting tribe. We have now arrived at 
 
FLOWERING PLANTS. 
 
 37 
 
 true flowering plants, of which all the rest of the 
 vegetable world is made 
 up ; but there is a very 
 evident difference be- 
 tween this kind of ve- 
 getable growth 'which I 
 hold in my hand, and 
 that of trees and shrubs. 
 Can you tell me what 
 it is?" 
 
 Henry took hold of 
 some of the grass, and 
 said, " These dried stems 
 are brittle and jointed, 
 and when we gathered 
 them they were tough 
 and juicy ; at first there 
 was a leaf wrapped 
 round the blossoms, as 
 if to take care of them : 
 I remember ears of wheat 
 have just the same sort 
 of sheath round them 
 when they first come 
 
 OUt. Trees and shrubs BOTJCII^TALKED MKADOW-GRASS. 
 
38 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 are very different ; they have hard woody steins, 
 that I can cut pegs and wedges from, and I never 
 saw this odd sheath round any of their flowers." 
 
 " But trees have no flowers," said Eobert. 
 
 "Indeed they have," exclaimed his sister, "and 
 I wonder you never saw me picking up lime 
 blossoms and elm blossoms, under the trees. They 
 are small, but very pretty. I like even the little 
 purplish laurel blossoms, and the tiny dark flowers 
 on the arbor vitse. And oh, how pleasant it is to 
 go down into the alder bed to get the beautiful 
 catkins, or to run to the wood for 
 
 ' Hazel-buds with crimson gems, 
 Green and glossy sallows.' 
 
 But perhaps you do not know what sallows are :- 
 they are willows ; and you recollect what pretty 
 green and shining tufts there are at the end of 
 the willow branches in the early spring." 
 
 "Mary is wild after flowers," said Eobert: 
 " and she finds out all the early buds and catkins. 
 She gathered all these grasses just before hay- 
 making time last summer." 
 
 " All flowering plants," said his father, " are 
 ranged under two great classes, or divisions, called 
 JEJndogens and Uxoffens, from their manner of 
 
FLOWERING PLANTS. 39 
 
 growth. The stem in the first of these classes 
 increases inwardly, that in the 
 second increases outwardly." 
 
 " Our large trees must in- 
 crease outwardly," said Henry, 
 "for we saw the layers of 
 wood in the timber that was* 
 felled last year, and you! 
 taught us about the age of I 
 a tree being known by the 
 number of rings in the 
 trunk." 
 
 " Exactly : but these grass- [ 
 es grow in the first place to- 
 wards the interior, while their I 
 stalks do not increase out- ' 
 wardly beyond a certain size ?x 
 so that they belong to the 
 first and smallest of these two 
 great divisions." 
 
 Henry wondered how any 
 one could tell at first sight 
 whether a plant grew in- 
 wardly or outwardly, and his 
 father directed him to a sim- FOX-TAIL GE^S 
 
40 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 pie and easy mark of these different manners of 
 growth. 
 
 "The plants that increase within," he said, 
 "have the veins of their leaves in straight lines 
 from one end of the leaf to the other, and those 
 that increase without have a beautiful network 
 of veins all over the leaf. If you collect a few 
 leaves from the garden, you will soon see the 
 difference." 
 
 The children' ran into the flower-garden and 
 gathered such early leaves as they could find ; and 
 bringing them to their father, he held up to the 
 light a crocus and a hyacinth leaf, and showed 
 them how beautifully regular are the parallel 
 veins running from end to end. 
 
 "This shows that crocuses and hyacinths are 
 endogens," he said; "but if you look at these 
 lilac and ivy, and primrose and violet leaves, you 
 see at' a glance that the veins branch out from the 
 rib which runs down the middle of the leaf, and 
 then subdivide into a kind of network ; therefore 
 these leaves belong to exogens." 
 
 " Oh yes, papa," said Mary, " and that is what 
 makes skeleton-leaves so pretty. How very easy 
 it will be to find out which are endogens and 
 
VARIETY OF GRASSES. 41 
 
 which are exogens ! but I wish they had not such 
 hard names." 
 
 " Those names simply mean, ' growing inwardly/ 
 and ' growing outwardly ;' and they are the only 
 hard names I shall trouble you with for a long 
 time." 
 
 " And how many plants belong to this straight- 
 veined division, or endogens ?" asked Henry. 
 
 " Very many that you are acquainted with, and 
 very many more that you know nothing about. 
 In the first place, there is the great tribe contain- 
 ing the various grasses which clothe the hills and 
 valleys wifh verdure, and in many cases bear 
 precious grain ; for oats, barley, wheat, rye, maize, 
 and rice, are all produced by plants of this tribe ; 
 while the inferior kinds of grass feed our flocks 
 and herds, and thus do us nearly as much service 
 as the others. But you must not suppose that all 
 the pastures of the earth consist of the same kind 
 of short sweet herbage with which our own fields 
 and meadows are covered. In South America 
 there are field crops of grass, especially on the 
 banks of the river Amazon, which grow to the 
 height of six or seven feet, and yet are perfectly 
 tender and delicate." 
 
42 FIRST STEPS IN GENEEAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "We might easily lose ourselves in such a 
 field as that," said Henry ; " and even tall men 
 would not be able to see each other over the tops 
 of the grass." 
 
 "On the Falkland Islands there is an extra- 
 ordinary kind of grass, growing in large tufts or 
 hillocks, which hide the view of the cattle feeding 
 among them. I have seen some of this grass 
 growing in the Botanical Gardens at Kew : but it 
 was a poor little stunted specimen compared with 
 the descriptions of the tussac grass, as it is called, 
 in its native country." 
 
 " What a good thing it is," said Eobert, " that 
 grass comes up everywhere without any trouble !" 
 "It is a great mercy," replied his father, "that 
 God has ' made the grass to grow upon the moun- 
 tains, and green herb for the service of men.' It 
 is also matter for thankfulness that by the skill 
 and industry of the farmer, our fields are sown 
 with the best varieties of these grasses, mixed in 
 such proportions as are suited to the wants of our 
 cattle. Uncivilized nations move from place to 
 place in search of fresh pastures; but civilized 
 people carefully cultivate the same land year after 
 year, and make it yield as much as possible." 
 
SEDGES. 43 
 
 Some of the grasses smell very sweetly when 
 they are in blossom/' said Mary, " and I dare say 
 they have a sweet taste to cows and sheep." 
 
 4 'No doubt. Sugar is to be found in most 
 grasses, and the sugar-cane is itself a grass. Maize 
 or Indian corn also abounds in sugar, and has 
 been recommended for cultivation as a substitute 
 for the sugar-cane." 
 
 " What a useful tribe," remarked Henry. " It 
 would be worth while to make out a list of the 
 things the grasses are used for. It would be a 
 very long one ; for, besides the use of the grass 
 itself and the different kinds of grain, there would 
 be hay and straw to notice, and all the things that 
 are made of them." 
 
 "And the use of reeds and canes," said his 
 father, " which are only large grasses. But 
 SEDGES,* which much resemble grasses in outward 
 appearance, are a distinct tribe, and have not the 
 same nourishing qualities ; they are therefore not 
 much sought after by cattle. You have seen 
 them growing up in marshy places, and have 
 noticed their frequently having a sharp triangular 
 stem, which will almost cut your fingers. The 
 * Cyperus. 
 
44 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Papyrus of the banks of the Nile is a species of 
 sedge, and so is the pretty Cotton-grass,* of which 
 Mary brought home so much last summer." 
 
 COTTON GRASS. 
 
 w Almost enough to make a pillow," replied the 
 
 * Eriophoram. 
 
DUCKWEED. 
 
 45 
 
 little girl ; " and when I have collected some more 
 I am to sleep upon it, and it will be just like a 
 pillow of down." 
 
 Eobert wished to know what is the real use of 
 the silky tufts on the cotton-grass, and he was 
 told that they surround the seed, and are intended 
 to waft it to different places. 
 
 " But before I proceed further," said his father, 
 " I must mention weeds that are very familiar to 
 you, as forming a dense green covering to ditches, 
 pools, and lakes. There are several species of 
 DUCKWEED, but two only are common in our 
 
 LESSER DUCKWEED. 
 
 ditches : perhaps the one best known to you is the 
 Lesser Duckweed,* the simplest of all flowering 
 plants." 
 
 * Lemna minor. 
 
46 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " I have often skimmed off some of it from the 
 water/' said Mary, " but I never found any flowers ; 
 only little green scales without any stems, and 
 with a delicate little fibre for a root." 
 
 " I do not wonder at your not finding the flowers, 
 for they are enclosed in a delicate membraneous 
 bag, and are kept concealed in a slit of the 
 leaf." 
 
 "What a droll place for them ! They shall not 
 hide themselves from me, for I mean to search for 
 them with my little microscope. But why are 
 these plants called duckweeds ?" 
 
 " Because all the species are said to be eaten by 
 ducks and other aquatic birds. Their botanical 
 name of Lemna means a scale. 
 
 "Near to the grasses are found certain tribes 
 having a general tendency to one manner of growth, 
 namely, to bear their flowers upon a club-shaped 
 spadix, as it is called. The common Arum,* or 
 ' Lords and Ladies/ or ' Cuckoo Pint/ has this kind 
 of spadix, and is a good example of a tribe of 
 plants chiefly confined to the tropics, where they 
 grow to a considerable size." 
 
 " I thought *' Lords and Ladies ' had no flowers ; 
 * Arum maculatum. 
 
THE ARUM TRIBE. 47 
 
 but only poisonous red berries wrapped up in a 
 curious hood/' said Robert. 
 
 CUCKOO PTXT. 
 
 " I do not wonder at your thinking so, for the 
 
48 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 flowers are naked ; that is, they have no petals, or 
 flower-leaves, but only those parts which are 
 necessary for the formation of the seed. The ber- 
 ries are very poisonous, but the root can be manu- 
 factured into a kind of sago. The hood you speak 
 of is a very curious mantle for the protection of 
 these naked flowers ; it is called the spathe. There 
 is another plant which you are fond of searching 
 for, and which bears its flowers on a spadix or 
 club, but it has no spathe to wrap them up in." 
 
 The children could not guess what plant it was 
 until their father said it grew in ditches, when they 
 immediately recollected the Bulrush.* 
 
 "Not that it is properly a rush" continued 
 their father ; "for the rush tribe has a higher place 
 in the vegetable system ; but it is a curious sedgy 
 plant, bearing numerous and nearly naked flowers 
 on its spadix. I cannot enter into descriptions 
 which belong to the scientific part of botany ; but 
 I may often lead you to notice the more conspicuous 
 features of the different tribes, and this will be a 
 great help to you. The grasses and the arum 
 group will be sufficient for our present conver- 
 sation : to-morrow we will talk about the palms." 
 
 * Typha. 
 
CONVEKSATION IV. 
 
 PALM AMARYLLIS IBIS PLANTAIN GINGER ARROWROOT 
 ORCHIS RUSH AUTUMN CROCUS, AND LILY TRIBES. 
 
 * The palm-tree in the wilderness 
 
 Majestic lifts its head, 
 And blooms in solitary grace 
 Where all around is dead." 
 
 MARY had read some verses, beginning in this 
 manner, and she tried to find them, and also to 
 learn the different uses of PALMS, before her father 
 came into the study. She found out that in 
 Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, people make their 
 principal food of the fruit ; that they make couches, 
 baskets, bags, mats, and brushes from the leaves, 
 and also roof their houses with them ; and that 
 they make garden-fences, and cages for poultry 
 from the branches; besides using the fibres for 
 thread, ropes, and rigging. Her father told her 
 that the uses of the palms are almost endless ; for, 
 according to Humboldt, wine, oil, wax, flour, 
 sugar, sago, and salt are obtained from the tribe, 
 besides many inferior articles. 
 
 4. E 
 
50 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "Even in England," said Henry> "the cocoa- 
 nut palm is very useful ; for we get the nut to eat, 
 and the shell polished for cups, and the fibres made 
 into beautiful matting." 
 
 "And mamma says that soap and candles are 
 made of palm-oil ; and that the little box on the 
 chimney-piece, which we call vegetable ivory, is 
 made of the kernel of a sort of palm," added Mary. 
 
 "I have seen pictures of palm-trees," said 
 Kobert, " and they seem to be very tall trees, with 
 a single stem and large tufts of leaves at the top." 
 
 " That is their common appearance ; but there 
 are at least four hundred distinct species of palms 
 (and perhaps many more) ; and among these there 
 is considerable variety: so that palms are oc- 
 casionally met with that are of a shrubby or 
 branched growth, or are armed with stiff spines. 
 Quite in character with the immense size of the 
 leaves in palms, is the enormous cluster of blos- 
 soms contained in each spathe ; for these trees, 
 like our common arum, have a large spathe for the 
 protection of their fruit. Here is a drawing of a 
 palm blossom, which will show you how the florets 
 are clustered together : they sometimes amount to 
 two hundred thousand in a single spathe." 
 
THE PALM TKIBE. 
 
 51 
 
 "If that is the case," said Henry, "I dare say 
 there is a great deal of seed : and it is a wonder 
 that the palm ever grows 
 up alone, and blooms ' in 
 solitary grace/ as Mary's 
 lines say." 
 
 "Its places of growth 
 are various," said his fa- 
 ther; "so that one who 
 has closely studied the 
 habits of this noble race, 
 says, ' not a few love the 
 humid banks of rivulets 
 and streams; others oc- 
 cupy the shores of the 
 ocean, and some ascend 
 into alpine regions ; some 
 collect into dense forests, 
 others spring up singly 
 or in clusters over the 
 
 PALM BLOSSOM, 
 
 plains.' But this you must understand of the 
 sunny regions within the tropics, beyond which 
 these plants do not extend. 
 
 " In palms we have the grandest form of endogens, 
 many of the species consisting of trees of gigantic 
 
52 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 stature and graceful shape, and with leaves of sucli 
 enormous size and strength that the midribs serve 
 for oars. The juice of the flower and stems in the 
 cocoa-nut palm is distilled into a spirit called arrack. 
 The fruit and the milk which it contains are well 
 known to you, but you have little idea of their 
 
 CLUSTER FKOM THE DATE PALM. 
 
 delicious flavour when fresh gathered. The juice 
 which flows from the wounded spathes, in this and 
 
PALM AND AMAKYLLIS TRIBES. 53 
 
 other species of palms, is known in India as Toddy, 
 or Palm wine, and has grateful and cooling pro- 
 perties. The pith of some palms is made into 
 bread by the natives, and is boiled into thick gruel 
 resembling sago. The true Sago Palm is so rich 
 in that substance that each tree is computed to 
 yield from 600 to 800 Ibs. Only a comparatively 
 small number of the palms have eatable fruit. 
 Besides the Cocoa-nut, there is the Date Palm,* 
 which furnishes the chief food of desert tribes, the 
 Doom Palm,f called in Egypt the Gingerbread 
 Tree, owing to its dark-brown mealy rind, and a 
 few others of small importance. Some of those 
 palms from whose trunks sugar and sago are ob- 
 tained have, nevertheless, exceedingly acrid fruit, 
 exciting inflammation in the mouth. 
 
 " The tribes immediately above palms are chiefly 
 floating or water-plants, and most of them foreign : 
 a few families, however, come with the familiar 
 names of " frog-bit," J " water-soldier," &c. Near 
 these are the pine-apple and agave, or Ameri- 
 can aloe ; the latter belonging to the tribe || which 
 contains our snowdrop and daffodil." 
 
 * Phoenix dactylifera. f Hyplixne thebaica. J Hydrocharid. 
 Stratiotes. || The Amaryllis tribe. 
 
54 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Robert asked if it is true that the aloe only 
 flowers once in a hundred years, and was answered 
 in the negative. 
 
 "The agave, of which 
 this fable is told, is a 
 hardy and useful plant, 
 forming in its native 
 country excellent hedges, 
 which it is impossible to 
 penetrate. The fibres of 
 the leaves are used as 
 thread, and are manufac- 
 tured into paper. Some 
 of the families contained 
 in this tribe have a poi- 
 sonous juice in their bulbs, 
 especially a species* grow- 
 ing at the Cape of Good 
 Hope, in which the Hot- 
 tentots are said to dip 
 their arrow-heads. Here 
 is one of our prettiest 
 spring flowers, the Nar- 
 cissus, but this, as well as 
 
 * H&manthus toxicarius. 
 
AMARYLLIS AND IRIS TRIBES. 
 
 55 
 
 the snowdrop and daffodil, has a share of the 
 same quality. The bulbs 
 of these plants have long 
 been known as emetic. 
 Infants, who are fond of 
 putting everything into 
 their mouths, have been 
 seriously injured by swal- 
 lowing daffodil blossoms, 
 which shows that some 
 of the poisonous prin- 
 ciple resides also in the 
 flowers." 
 
 " I am disappointed 
 that my pretty snowdrops 
 have anything poisonous 
 about them," said Mary. 
 " I hope those handsome 
 purple and yellow cro- 
 cuses are better off." 
 
 "They belong to the 
 IRIS tribe, and I cannot 
 flatter you that all are free 
 from similar qualities ; 
 however, the crocus itself is rather beneficial than 
 
 SPRING CKOCUS. 
 
56 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 otherwise, and it is from one* of its family that we 
 get saffron. The saffron crocus flowers in Sep- 
 tember, and is of a deep purple, with orange- 
 coloured stamens, which, when dried, form the 
 saffron." 
 
 " Why does mamma put saffron in the canary's 
 drinking-glass when he is moulting?" asked 
 Eobert. 
 
 " Because it is of a warm and stimulating 
 nature, and appears to render the same sort of 
 service to the bird, in helping him to throw off his 
 feathers, as it does to human beings in helping 
 them to throw out troublesome eruptions of the 
 skin. Medical men frequently use it for this 
 latter purpose on the Continent, and I believe in 
 this country also. In the same tribe are some 
 handsome garden flowers, the Gladiolus Ixia, and 
 the varieties of Iris, all more or less suspicious in 
 their qualities. We have now to leave these fa- 
 miliar plants, and pass to a small tribe containing 
 the plantains and bananas, valuable tropical fruits, 
 of which you have often heard." 
 
 " It seems strange to pass from our little cro- 
 cuses to those great trees," said Eobert. 
 
 * Crocus sativus. 
 
PLANTAIN AND BANANA. 57 
 
 " Not trees" replied his father, " although they 
 are twenty or thirty feet high." 
 
 "But in pictures, papa, they look something 
 like palms, and I fancied that they were trees 
 like them." 
 
 " They are so far from being trees, that they 
 have no true stem : the enormous leaves sheath- 
 ing round each other form a kind of spurious stem, 
 of great size, tapering as it ascends, and in the 
 centre of which rises a spathe of flowers, followed 
 by clusters of fruit." 
 
 " Then they are something like crocuses in 
 having no stem ; but they are better off than 
 crocuses, in bearing fruit. What sort of fruit 
 is it?" 
 
 " In appearance I am told that the unripe 
 plantain is exceedingly like a large cucumber." 
 
 " How ugly !" said Mary. " Fancy a cluster of 
 cucumbers !" 
 
 " If they are not very pretty to look at, plan- 
 tains and bananas are very wholesome, and some 
 of them very delicious as food. The plantain * is 
 the coarser kind preferred by the natives, and 
 cooked before it is ripe as a vegetable, or eaten 
 
 * Musa paradisiaca. 
 
58 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ripe as food. The banana * is a shorter, thicker 
 fruit, greatly preferred by Europeans in tropical 
 countries, and reminding them of bur finest-fla- 
 voured apples and pears. Indian cottages are 
 thatched with the leaves of the plantain, and the 
 tables are spread with them as a natural cloth. 
 The plants also furnish many useful articles, espe- 
 cially flax, from which some of the finest muslins 
 of India are prepared. Among the tribes closely 
 following this, we meet with other examples of 
 warm and stimulating qualities in the GINGER tribe, 
 a very useful race of plants." 
 
 " Green ginger preserves are delicious," said 
 Henry ; " and people make ginger wine and ginger 
 beer, otherwise I should not think ginger very 
 useful." 
 
 " All the ginger plants are natives of hot 
 climates, where the inhabitants need this sort of 
 stimulant more than we do, and chew such power- 
 ful spices with much pleasure." 
 
 The children would have been surprised to hear 
 this, had they not seen a Hindoo servant shortly 
 before, whose mistress was accustomed to treat 
 
 * Mitxa sapientum. 
 
GINGER AND ARROWROOT. 59 
 
 her with nutmegs and ginger, just as we should 
 treat a child with sugar-plums. 
 
 " Ginger, as you know, is the root of the plant ; 
 but several plants of this kind produce very pun- 
 gent seeds, as the cardamoms, and some a still 
 hotter kind, called Grrains-of -Paradise. Others 
 yield a dye, as turmeric, which is much used in 
 manufactures. The pretty plant called Indian 
 Shot, of which we once had several specimens in 
 the conservatory, belongs to a neighbouring tribe, 
 called the ARROW-ROOT tribe. Three or four of 
 the species yield arrow- root in abundance, but espe- 
 cially one,* which is much cultivated in the West 
 India Islands." 
 
 "How do they get the arrowroot from the 
 plant ?" asked Mary. 
 
 " When the roots are a year old, they are dug 
 up, washed, and grated, or beaten to a pulp in 
 wooden mortars. This pulp is thrown into clean 
 water, and stirred about to separate the fibrous 
 parts, which are collected in the hand. The 
 milky liquor which remains is poured through a 
 sieve, and afterwards allowed to settle for some 
 time. The arrowroot sinks to the bottom, and 
 
 * Maranta arundinacea. 
 
60 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 when the water is poured off, the white pasty mass 
 that remains is placed on clean white cloths in the 
 sun to dry. It is then fit for use, and will keep 
 for a very long time." 
 
 "What is the plant like?" asked Kobert. 
 
 " It is a handsome plant, with long and broad 
 leaves, of a very rich green. I will show you a 
 hot-house specimen on the first opportunity." 
 
 The children were now told that they had 
 arrived at a very curious and remarkable race 
 of plants, different in many respects from other 
 tribes, but not the less interesting to botanists, or 
 even to common observers. 
 
 "Do you remember," said their father, "the 
 odd-looking Bee-orchis we used to watch for so 
 eagerly every spring ? There were a few roots in 
 a corner of the orchard, but unfortunately they 
 have now died away." 
 
 " Oh yes, papa," said Mary, " it looked exactly 
 like a bee settled on a flower." 
 
 " One of the marks of the ORCHIS tribe, is the 
 very general enlargement, and often the very 
 curious shape and appearance, of one of the inner 
 rows of petals. In the bee-orchis it is quite dif- 
 ferent from all the other petals, being of a dark 
 
BUTTERFLY-ORCHIS. 6 1 
 
 colour, velvety texture, and looking, at a little dis* 
 
 BUTTERFLY-ORCHIS. 
 
 tance, very much like a bee. In another, it re- 
 
62 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 sembles a fly ; in another, a lady's slipper, and so 
 an, giving corresponding names to the different 
 species. You are fond of searching for some of 
 the common kinds of orchis in the woods and 
 marshy places where they grow ; but from these 
 poor little terrestrial plants you can scarcely form 
 an idea of the orchids of tropical countries ; where, 
 instead of being content with such a lowly situa- 
 tion, they take root among the branches of living 
 trees, or spring from the decaying bark of those 
 that have fallen, putting forth the most brilliant 
 and remarkable flowers, which, towards evening, 
 give out a delicious scent. I must contrive a 
 visit for you to some botanical garden where 
 orchids are reared ; and if you can bear for a few 
 minutes the hot damp atmosphere, which is arti- 
 ficially created for them to live in, you will be de- 
 lighted and amazed at the extraordinary shapes of 
 the flowers, and at the curious growth of the 
 plants, frequently parasitical, on little logs of 
 wood suspended from the roof of the hot-house." 
 
 "What is the use of these curious plants?" 
 asked Henry. 
 
 " In many, we see more beauty than use ; but 
 there are several which are applied to economical 
 
THE RUSH TRIBE. 63 
 
 purposes. A nourishing substance called salep is 
 obtained from the roots of one species ;* vanilla, 
 used in the manufacture of chocolate, of liqueurs, 
 and confectionary, is the dried fruit of another ;f 
 while the roots of a third J are so gummy that 
 they are used in the United States for mending 
 broken earthenware, and are called putty-root" 
 
 "I wish putty -root grew here," said Eobert, 
 " that I might mend mamma's broken china." 
 
 "Besides this," continued his father, "a few are 
 taken medicinally ; and in New Holland the mealy 
 roots of many species are eaten by the natives. 
 Near to the orchis tribe come several tribes of 
 water-plants or marsh-plants, all natives of warm 
 climates, and more interesting to the botanist than 
 they would be to you ; let us, therefore, proceed to 
 the RUSHES/' 
 
 The children were very familiar with rushes, 
 and Mary was in the habit of peeling them for the 
 sake of a beautiful white pith with which their 
 stems are filled, and which her mamma had taught 
 her to apply to many ornamental purposes. They 
 also knew that rush-lights are candles in which 
 
 * Orchis mascula. f Vanilla planifolia. 
 
 J Aplectrum hyemale. 
 
64 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 SOFT 
 
 ( Juncus effusus.) 
 
THE BUSH TKIBE. 65 
 
 this pith is used for a wick, and that a great many 
 useful things are made of rushes. 
 
 " These plants," said their father, " are mostly 
 natives of cold countries, although several are 
 found in the tropics. Even in the severe climate 
 of Melville Island, our arctic voyagers found two 
 species of rush. A damp and cold soil appears to 
 suit them best ; and where rushes spring up it is 
 generally a sign that the land wants draining." 
 
 " But I have seen them growing on dry heaths," 
 said Henry. 
 
 " That may be. Heaths are frequently dry on 
 the surface, while a little way beneath is a cold 
 clay, in which rushes would flourish. Large tracts 
 of land in Japan are devoted to the cultivation 
 of rushes, and are flooded at intervals like rice 
 grounds : this large supply of rushes is entirely 
 devoted to the making of rush-matting for cover- 
 ing floors. You have seen the basket-maker 
 in our village using rushes for mats, chair-bottoms, 
 and other articles, therefore I need say no more 
 of their uses. We now approach the lilies, first 
 pausing at a dangerous tribe, called the MEADOW- 
 SAFFRON tribe, in which there are some fatal poisons, 
 as well as some useful medicines. Do you remein- 
 4. F 
 
66 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 ber the pale purple crocuses that came up without 
 leaves in September r" 
 
 " Yes, papa/' said Eobert, " I had two or three 
 in my garden, and now there are leaves coming 
 up without blossoms. How odd it is that the 
 leaves and the flowers are so far apart !" 
 
 " This will help you to distinguish it from the 
 spring crocus, and also from the useful Saffron 
 Crocus, which belong to another family. This 
 autumn crocus,* or meadow saffron, which we 
 are glad to see when other flowers are gone, 
 is yet a dangerous plant ; and there are well- 
 known cases of poisoning from chewing the bulb 
 or the young shoots." 
 
 " Would any one except a baby be so foolish as 
 to chew it ?" inquired Henry. 
 
 " Some time ago a poor woman picked up a few 
 of these crocus roots in Covent-garden market, 
 and fancied they were onions. One would have 
 thought that she must have missed the powerful 
 odour of the onion, and so have discovered her 
 mistake, but unfortunately she did not ; but ate 
 them, and was poisoned. Another plant of this 
 
 * Colchicum autumnalc. 
 
THE MEADOW-SAFFRON TRIBE. 67 
 
 tribe, called White Hellebore,* is a nauseous and 
 dangerous plant, containing a peculiar principle 
 called veratria, which acts in a singular manner on 
 the nose, producing most violent sneezing when 
 taken as snuff in ever so small a quantity. It has 
 a similar irritating effect when taken into the 
 stomach, and a few grains tried on some of the 
 lower animals have been fatal." 
 
 " Is it not very cruel to try the effect of poison 
 on cats and dogs ?" asked Henry. 
 
 " Exceedingly cruel if it is done for mere sport 
 or curiosity ; but if there is a prospect of saving 
 human life by it, or of doing some important ser- 
 vice to mankind, then it is lawful and proper to 
 make experiments of this sort. But let us leave 
 this gloomy race of plants, and proceed to their 
 near neighbours, the more innocent and beautiful 
 lilies." 
 
 " Is that a large tribe, papa ?" asked Mary. " I 
 can only think of five sorts, the tall white lilies, 
 and the orange-coloured, and the Turk's-cap, and 
 the trumpet, and the dear sweet little lilies of the 
 valley." 
 
 " The LILY tribe," said her father, " is very ex- 
 * Veratrum album. 
 
68 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
THE LILY TRIBE. 69 
 
 tensive ; for in reality the showy tulips, the speckled 
 bell-shaped fritillaries, the sweet tuberose, the ele- 
 gant agapanthus, and the fragrant hyacinths, rank 
 with lilies ; and there are many useful plants, such 
 as onions, asparagus, squills, aloes, &c., which are 
 also placed by Lindley in his great order of Lily- 
 worts." 
 
 " I thought you had told us about aloes before, 
 papa," said Robert. 
 
 " I spoke of the Agave, or American aloe, which 
 is said to flower once in a hundred years ; but 
 that is of a different family, and has very different 
 properties from the true aloes, several species of 
 which are used in medicine.* These latter are 
 tree-like plants growing in tropical countries. 
 Some of the relations of our lilies, indeed, grow to 
 a majestic height in those warm climates, and from 
 their stem and leaves various gums or resins are 
 collected, some of which are useful in medicine, 
 especially dragon's blood, the strange name of a 
 resin which comes from a very large species,f 
 growing to the height of sixty or seventy feet in 
 the Canary Islands." 
 
 * Aloe vulgaris, A. soccotrina, and others. 
 t Dracxnas Dtaco. 
 
70 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "What grand and beautiful things the lilies 
 must be !" exclaimed Mary. " Which of them do 
 you think it was, papa, that our Saviour spoke of, 
 when He said that ( even Solomon in all his glory 
 was not arrayed like one of these ?' " 
 
 "Probably those 'lilies of the field' were the 
 scarlet lilies,* which still spring up freely on the 
 plains of Syria." 
 
 Robert was disappointed at hearing this ; for he 
 had made up his mind that our humble lilies of the 
 valley were the flowers which our Saviour had con- 
 descended to notice. 
 
 The children were told that several tribes of 
 plants, following lilies, are natives of marshes or 
 slow-running water in foreign countries ; and that 
 of one of them the only British specimen is the 
 Flowering Eush, one of the most beautiful of our 
 wild flowers, and which gives its name to the tribe. 
 The WATER-PLANTAIN tribe contains several com- 
 mon inhabitants of ponds and ditches, some of them 
 much resembling the crow-foot of the meadows." 
 
 " I remember," said Mary, " finding flowers that 
 reminded me of buttercups in the pond at the 
 bottom of the lane, but they grew more of them 
 
 * Lilium Chalcedonicum. 
 
THE FLOWERING-KUSH TRIBE. 
 
 71 
 
 FLOWERING ] 
 
 (Butomus umbellatus.) 
 
72 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 together on tlie stem, and instead of being yellow, 
 
 they were of a sort of flesh-colour." 
 
 " That was the common arrow-head* so named 
 from its arrow - shaped 
 leaves, and belonging to 
 the Water-plantains. 
 
 " The pond-weed t is a 
 common British example 
 of another of those tribes 
 of marsh-growing plants 
 which I have referred to 
 as chiefly foreign. 
 
 " Immediately succeed- 
 ing these," said their 
 father, "there is a group 
 containing half a dozen 
 tribes that would be very 
 puzzling to you, were they 
 common plants. Although 
 their growth is like that 
 of endogens, yet they 
 have net-veined leaves, 
 
 which you know is a sign of the exogens. I shall 
 
 not trouble you with the names of these tribes, 
 
 * Sagittaria so gitti folia, t Poiamogeton natans 
 
 ARfiOW-HEAD. 
 
APPROACH TO A HIGHER STRUCTURE. 73 
 
 because nearly all the plants are natives of hot 
 countries, and are not likely to offer any difficulty 
 to us. Among them are the useful yams, culti- 
 vated as potatoes, and the esteemed sarsaparilla 
 plants, much employed in medicine. But if you 
 want an English specimen of this kind of growth, 
 you must search for Herb Paris, that odd-looking 
 plant called by country people True Love, which 
 grows about a foot high, and bears four broad egg- 
 shaped leaves at the top of the stem, and a green 
 blossom followed by a purplish-black berry." 
 
 " I wonder what makes these plants so different 
 from all the rest of the endogens," said Henry. 
 "Perhaps we are coming near the net- veined 
 plants, and so these are gradually getting like 
 them, just as the tribes of animals gradually came 
 near each other, as we travelled upwards." 
 
 " You are right, Henry," said his father : " we 
 are now coming to the important and almost end- 
 less races of exogens, which make up the great bulk 
 of the vegetable kingdom. And now I must tell 
 you of another mark by which the three great 
 divisions of the vegetable world are distinguished 
 by botanists. The first or flowerless division has 
 no true seeds ; the second and third divisions have 
 
74 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 seeds, but they are differently formed. The seed 
 of an endogen, when it first begins to grow, sends 
 downwards a slender root called the radical, and 
 upwards a single seed-leaf or lobe, which is the 
 beginning of the young plant. But the exogens 
 do more than this, for they send up two seed-leaves 
 instead of one, as you may have often noticed in 
 lupines and other plants, where the two thick fleshy 
 seed-leaves push through the soil, nourishing and 
 protecting the young plant, and having a very 
 different appearance from the leaves which come 
 afterwards. Sometimes these seed-leaves remain 
 underground, as in the Windsor bean, and gradu- 
 ally die away when their purpose is answered. 
 Even before the seed has begun to sprout, these 
 differences are visible with the microscope ; but it 
 is not often necessary to examine the seed in this 
 way, because there is such a very plain and sim- 
 ple means of knowing endogens from exogens 
 without it." 
 
 " You mean the straight-veined leaves and the 
 net- veined," said Henry. " Yes, that is a very nice 
 way of knowing them apart, and so little trouble : 
 I am getting quite a habit of holding up leaves to 
 the light to see which division they belong to. 
 
CHARACTERS OF ENDOGENS. 75 
 
 But, papa," he added, "do you not think that 
 there is something about endogens that would 
 almost tell you what they are at a distance, with- 
 out examining the leaves ? Look at the lilies and 
 daffodils in the garden ; how delicate they seem, 
 as if they grew up very quickly, and would not 
 last long. They do not look strong and hardy 
 like other plants." 
 
 "Endogens," said his father, "are less highly 
 organized than exogens, and are, generally speak- 
 ing, very short-lived. There are exceptions to 
 this, for some of the palms live two or three hun- 
 dred years; but even in this case their existence 
 is short, compared with that of many of our forest 
 trees. Before we begin our last great division of 
 the vegetable world, let me give you one other 
 character by which endogens are in most cases to 
 be known. In examining their flowers we shall 
 find the number three, or some multiple of that 
 number, to prevail, while in exogens the number 
 five, or its multiple, generally prevails." 
 
 Mary gathered a snowdrop, and looked at the 
 blossom. "There are more than three of these 
 pretty white petals," she said. 
 
 Her father pointed out to her that there are six 
 
76 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 (twice three), arranged in two rows, one within 
 the other, three petals in each row. He also pointed 
 out six stamens, and then opened the seed-vessel, 
 which looked like a little green berry ; and there 
 Mary saw three distinct cells for holding the seed. 
 "A.s the spring flowers open," said her father, 
 "take notice how many have the number three 
 conspicuous. You will find that lilies of the 
 valley, although they have but one petal to make 
 up their delicate, cup-shaped flower, yet have 
 this cup divided at its edges into six (twice three) 
 segments, enclosing six stamens, while the seed- 
 vessel has also three cells. The same is the case 
 with the hyacinth. In the tulip and narcissus 
 you will find the petals six, stamens six, and cells 
 of the capsule three. Thus you may go on with 
 numerous examples, and I would gladly see you 
 gaining this sort of general knowledge of endogens, 
 before you puzzle yourselves with the difficult 
 words which are necessary to express their botanical 
 characters." 
 
CONVEESATION V. 
 
 EXOGENS. 
 
 PINE YEW BEEF-WOODWILLOW NETTLE HEMP 
 MULBERRY, AND PLANE TRIBES. 
 
 THE young larch firs in the plantation had now 
 put on their beautiful green foliage, and the 
 children were comparing their delicate colour with 
 the dark green of the hardy spruce fir, and with 
 the deep bluish-green of the Scotch fir, when 
 their father asked them how they should know 
 that these trees, so different in colour, were all of 
 one tribe. 
 
 "Very easily, papa," said Henry; "because 
 they all have needle-shaped leaves, and they all 
 bear cones." 
 
 "And they all have a very pleasant smell," 
 added Mary, " for that is the reason why we gather 
 fir-cones in autumn. Mamma sometimes has a few 
 of the dried cones put on the drawing-room fire, 
 where they blaze up very quickly, and scent the 
 room ; and we put some in our clothes-drawers to 
 
78 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 keep away the nioth, for the insect does not like 
 the smell that we are so fond of." 
 
 CONES OP SrBUCE-FHU 
 
 "The three marks you have mentioned/' said 
 
FORMATION OF WOOD AND BARK. 79 
 
 their father, " are indeed true signs of the PINE 
 tribe, the members of which all bear cones, and 
 are therefore called Conifers : and also have pe- 
 culiar spiny leaves, and contain an abundance of 
 strong-smelling resin. But can you tell me whether 
 they are endogens or exogens ?" 
 
 Mary said she could hardly tell by looking at 
 the leaves, because they were so narrow, but she 
 fancied they were straight-veined. Henry did not 
 think so, and he felt sure the trees were exogens, 
 from their hard and woody growth. Robert, too, 
 remembered that his father had said that all our 
 forest trees are exogens, so this settled the matter 
 yet they were told that because of some differ- 
 ences connected with the seed, these trees have 
 sometimes been considered a distinct class. 
 
 "I shall scarcely do wrong, however," said 
 their father, " in calling them the lowest race of 
 exogens, from which they do not differ in growth, 
 but increase exactly in the same manner, by 
 yearly additions to the outer portion of the wood." 
 
 " I cannot understand how trees get their new 
 layer every year without our noticing it," said 
 Mary ; " there are the elms at the end of the gar- 
 den, with their rough old trunks ; I play under 
 
80 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 them nearly every day, and I do not see the old 
 bark fall off, and a new one come instead of it." 
 
 " These new layers of wood are formed under 
 the bark, and out of our sight. You have seen 
 people stripping off the bark from trees after they 
 are cut down, and you must have noticed how 
 easily it comes off; it is, indeed, quite distinct from 
 the wood, and has a gummy substance between it 
 and the true wood." 
 
 " Then as the wood goes on increasing, does the 
 bark stretch very much, or how does it manage 
 to make room ?" 
 
 " The bark itself is also gradually renewed on 
 its inner side, while the outer portion cracks and 
 peels off, or perishes by slow degrees. Thus, 
 while the solid trunk of the tree is formed by zone 
 upon zone of new wood, which is added in suc- 
 cession, year after year, the bark is renewed by 
 zone within zone of fresh material ; but with this 
 difference ; in the bark, the outside perishes, and 
 a new layer adapted to the increasing size of the 
 tree gradually takes its place ; in the true wood 
 every layer is permanent, and forms solid tim- 
 ber." 
 
 " Then," said Mary, " the old bark is obliged to 
 
THE PINE TRIBE. 81 
 
 keep on giving way to the young bark ; but that 
 must get old-looking too before it comes up in 
 sight, or else we should see a greater difference in 
 the tree than we do." 
 
 "All these processes take place so gradually 
 that we are unconscious of them, just as we are 
 generally unconscious of the changes going on in 
 our own bodies, where new material takes the 
 place of the old in a very similar manner." 
 
 Eobert held up his fingers to show that some of 
 the skin was peeling off, and that new skin had 
 formed underneath ; upon which Henry compared 
 him to a young birch-tree, whose silvery bark 
 often peels off in long thin slips. " You forget," 
 said Kobert, " that young birch-trees make very 
 good rods," and he began playfully to chastise his 
 brother, when their father called them back to the 
 subject of conversation, by saying, 
 
 " The pine tribe is an exceedingly valuable one, 
 on account of its timber, which is well known, 
 as deal, fir, cedar, &c. There are vast forests of 
 pines in North America, and in some parts of 
 northern Europe. The loftier species make capital 
 masts for ships, while some others, as cedar, cy- 
 press, and juniper, are noted for the extraordinary 
 4. a 
 
82 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 lurability of their timber. The celebrated gates 
 of Constantinople, which lasted eleven hundred 
 years were made of cypress. The different kinds 
 of resinous matter obtained from pines are also 
 very valuable, and are known as turpentine, pitch, 
 balsam, sandarach, &c. The berries of the common 
 juniper are used in flavouring gin, and the large 
 seeds of some of the pines are eatable when fresh." 
 
 " Pines are useful, indeed," said Henry ; " but I 
 always thought our hardest and strongest wood 
 was yew-tree wood. I have heard that the ancient 
 Britons made their bows of it, and they were 
 famous ones, very strong and elastic." 
 
 " That is true," said his father ; " and the YEW 
 tribe, which comes next to the pine tribe, is not to 
 be surpassed as to the durability of its timber ; 
 but the tribe must still be considered far less 
 valuable, because the trees are much less common. 
 In Europe we have only one species, the common 
 yew.* Asia is richer in trees of this kind ; and in 
 New Zealand the most valuable timber is gained 
 from members of the tribe. I must warn you, 
 however, that the leaves of the common yew are 
 very poisonous." 
 
 * Taxus baccata. 
 
THE YEW TRIBE. 83 
 
 Robert was surprised to hear this; and lie 
 thought he must have had a narrow escape from 
 
 LEAF ASTD FLOWEB OF THE YEW. 
 
 poisoning, for he well remembered being tempted 
 
84 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 to eat some of the pretty rose-coloured berries of 
 the yew. His father told him that the soft part of 
 the berry is quite harmless, if the seed is not 
 swallowed; but he advised him in future not to 
 meddle with any strange fruit, however tempting 
 its appearance. 
 
 " There are several foreign trees," said his 
 father, " whose wood is not very inferior to that 
 of the yew in hardness ; but I shall now lead you 
 to a group which may be known by having their 
 flowers arranged in catkins, as we are accustomed 
 to call their dense spikes of blossom. Foremost 
 are the BEEF-WOODS,* a curious tribe of trees and 
 bushes in Australia, whose great peculiarity is, 
 that they have no leaves." 
 
 " Dear papa, what odd trees !" said Mary ; " how 
 strange it seems that they should be able to live 
 and grow without leaves. Our trees have no 
 leaves in winter, but when summer conies, if any 
 of them are leafless we know that they are dead." 
 
 " These Australian trees have drooping jointed 
 
 branches, and at every joint there are little sheaths, 
 
 occupying the place where we should expect the 
 
 leaves to grow. Their flowers are in catkins, and 
 
 * Casuarina. 
 
THE BEEF-WOOD TRIBE. 
 
 85 
 
 the seed is collected into 
 a sort of cone, which once 
 led to the opinion that 
 they belonged to the pine 
 tribe." 
 
 " I am glad they have 
 catkins and cones to show 
 that they are living, and 
 not dead trees," said 
 Mary ; " but I should like 
 to know why they have 
 the odd name of beef- 
 wood trees.'' 
 
 " They are called so by 
 the colonists because the 
 timber is very much the 
 colour of raw beef. One 
 of the species is also called 
 the she-oak, because its 
 branches and cones con- 
 tain a pleasant acid, and 
 travellers suffering from 
 thirst obtain great relief 
 by chewing them. I must 
 now ask Mary, who is 
 
 BKEF-\VOCD TEEK. 
 
86 
 
 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 so fond of catkins, to name some other trees which 
 
 bear them." 
 
 Mary soon thought of the 
 birch* and the alder, f which 
 her father told her were 
 near relations, and, with few 
 exceptions, more valuable 
 as ornaments than as timber. 
 " Among birch," he said, 
 "there is a tree in North 
 America J with so tough and 
 thick a bark, that the In- 
 dians make boats of it, and 
 various other useful articles. 
 Our common birch yields 
 an oil which gives the pe- 
 culiar smell to Russia 
 leather, which is dressed 
 with it. A sparkling wine 
 can also be obtained from 
 the sap of the birch, and 
 some North American spe- 
 cies furnish excellent sugar. 
 
 BLOSSOM OF ALDER. 
 
 * Betula. 
 J B.papyracea. 
 
 f Alnus. 
 S B. alba. 
 
THE WILLOW TKIBE. 
 
 87 
 
 The alder is less remarkable for its uses; but 
 there is a bitter principle in its bark which has 
 been employed medicinally." 
 
 BLOSSOM OJ? WILLOW. 
 
 " I have thought of some other trees with cat- 
 kins," said Mary. "All the willows and poplars 
 seem to have them ; for I have seen them on the 
 weeping willow that grows by the water, and on 
 
88 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 the common willows, and on the tall Lombardy 
 poplars, and on the quivering aspen." 
 
 "True," said her father; "the WILLOW tribe, 
 including all the willows * and poplars,t has this 
 general mark of relationship, besides others which 
 
 LEAF OF WHITE POPLAB. 
 
 bind the families especially into one tribe. Their 
 wood is sometimes valuable as timber, but oftener 
 for common domestic purposes. Henri's cricket- 
 bat is made of the common white willow ; J your 
 
 Salix. 
 
 f Populus. 
 
 1 8. alba. 
 
THE NETTLE TRIBE. 89 
 
 weeding-basket, Mary, is of the common osier,* 
 and your mamma lias a basket made of the fine 
 basket osier, which grows in meadows and marshy 
 places in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. Eobert's 
 arrows are made of the aspen,t and most of our 
 charcoal is made from sallows." 
 
 Kobert wished to know why willows are some- 
 times called osiers and sallows ; and he was told 
 that these names help to distinguish the different 
 species in this extensive family, which contains 
 upwards of sixty distinct species, natives of Britain ; 
 so that the study of willows is not a little puzzling 
 to young botanists. 
 
 "Let us now pass on," said his father, "to a 
 neighbouring group, which is chiefly distinguished 
 from this by the flowers not being commonly ar- 
 ranged in catkins. I shall first notice the nettle 
 tribe." 
 
 "Why is the nettle put among trees?" asked 
 Eobert. 
 
 " Because it resembles these particular trees in 
 important botanical particulars. But the nettle is 
 not always the despised weed it is with us. Some 
 of the species grow to the height of trees, and have 
 
 * S. mminalis. f P. tremula. 
 
90 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 their branched form ; but the wood is very light 
 and spongy." 
 
 " Nettles are of no 'use, are they, papa, but really 
 mischievous, on account of their sting ?" 
 
 " We have no right to say of any created thing 
 that it is of no use ; and if you were acquainted 
 with old herbals, you would find great virtues 
 ascribed to nettles, and to their relation, ' Pellitory 
 of the Wall.' But if we do not place entire faith 
 in these accounts, we yet learn that cordage can 
 be made from nettles ; that a species with tuberous 
 roots* has been used instead of potatoes, and that 
 even the stinging quality has been made use of 
 in cases of paralysis, the benumbed limb being 
 flogged with nettles, to restore sensation." 
 
 Mary said, that if there was any life left in the 
 limb, the person would be sure to feel the sting ; 
 but her father told her that he had never heard of 
 a case in which this rough treatment was of much 
 service. 
 
 "As some nettles/' he said, "can be made into 
 cordage, so the HEMP tribe, which follows, is of 
 great service, on account of the tough fibres of the 
 well-known hemp,t from which our ropes, door- 
 
 * Urtioa tuberosa. t Canndbis sativa. 
 
THE HEMP TRIBE. 
 
 91 
 
 mats, &c., are manufactured. In temperate climates 
 this is the grand use of hemp ; but in hot countries 
 
 COMMON HOP. 
 
 (Humulus lupulus.') 
 
 it also affords a resin, which has intoxicating pro- 
 perties, producing drowsiness and drunkenness. 
 
92 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 In this sleep-producing property it resembles its 
 near relation, the hop, which belongs to this tribe, 
 and is a well-known ingredient in beer." 
 
 "Hops are very pretty," said Mary; "but 1 
 should not like them to be trained over trellis-work 
 as some people have them, in their gardens ; be- 
 cause whenever I touched the blossoms they would 
 give out that disagreeable bitter smell." 
 
 " Many persons think it a fine aromatic smell," 
 said her father ; " it is produced by little glands 
 (easily rubbed off), which are scattered over the 
 green scales of the hop-head, and contain a bitter 
 resin. But we must proceed to the MULBERRY 
 tribe." 
 
 The mulberry-tree was a great favourite with 
 the children, not only on account of the rich fruit 
 which it afforded them, just in the hottest weather, 
 but also on account of the supply of leaves it 
 yielded to their silkworms. They were surprised 
 to hear that the fig-tree belongs to this tribe, and 
 that both have been brought from the East, the 
 whole tribe being of foreign origin. Their father 
 spoke of the fig-trees as especially interesting, 
 since one of them is the remarkable banyan-tree* of 
 * Fwus indica. 
 
THE MULBERRY TRIBE. 93 
 
 India, whose immense branches send down shoots 
 to the earth, which take root, and form pillars for 
 the support of the extended foliage. 
 
 " Bring Milton's works," he said ; " look in the 
 ninth book of Paradise Lost, for some mention of 
 this method of growth in the banyan- tree." 
 
 Henry read as follows : 
 
 *' The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 
 About the mother-tree, a pillar'd shade 
 High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between." 
 
 " What beautiful shady groves it must make," 
 said Mary ; " and how pleasant it must be in that 
 hot country to have such a shelter !" 
 
 Her father replied, "The poet Southey, de- 
 scribing a banyan-tree, says : 
 
 ' So like a temple did it seem, that there 
 The pious heart's first impulse would be prayer :' 
 
 we may, therefore, make due allowance for the poor 
 Hindoo, who in performing his devotions near this 
 tree, considers, in his ignorance, that the banyan 
 itself is an object of worship. There is something 
 very touching, to my mind, in the reverence and 
 gratitude which the heathen show to natural ob- 
 jects, such as the sun and moon, rivers, trees, and 
 
94 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 animals. Sensible of the blessings conferred upon 
 them, and ignorant of the source from whence they 
 
 OBIENTAL PLANE. 
 
 come, these poor creatures worship the gifts instead 
 of the Giver ; and grievous as this error is 3 yet ii 
 
THE MULBERBY TRIBE. 95 
 
 does not seem so gross and debasing as the worship 
 of images, the work of men's hand." 
 
 "Another day," said Mary, "the poor little 
 Hindoo children will be taught not to worship the 
 river Ganges, or the banyan-tree, but Him who 
 made all the beautiful groves and streams." 
 
 " God grant it may be so," said her father. 
 
 Henry now inquired whether tig-trees are of 
 any other use than to give fruit and shade ; and he 
 was told that they furnish India-rubber in great 
 abundance, and that in some of them their milky 
 fluid forms a wholesome beverage, giving them 
 the name of cow-trees. He was also told that the 
 PLANE tribe, containing fine timber trees, natives 
 of JBarbary, the Levant, and North America, and 
 represented in this country by the noble plane- 
 tree,* which affords so much shade, is not far 
 removed from the mulberry and fig, although its 
 juice is watery instead of milky. 
 
 * Platanus orienialia. 
 
CONVERSATION VI. 
 
 8PURGEWORT MASTWORT WALNUT NUTMEG CUCUMBER 
 BEGONIA PAPAW PASSION-FLOWERVIOLET TAMARISK, AND 
 HOUSE-LEEK TRIBES. 
 
 ONE day the children saw in their father's study 
 a smooth, thick piece of wood, on which a very 
 beautiful drawing had been made. Mary asked if 
 she might have such a piece of wood to draw upon ; 
 but she was told that it was too expensive, and 
 that she must be contented with paper, until she 
 could draw in a very superior manner. 
 
 "This is the wood of the box-tree," said her 
 father, " and it has been prepared in this way for 
 the use of the wood engraver, whose interesting 
 work I will one day take you to see. Meanwhile 
 let us talk about the tribe to which the box 
 belongs. It is called the SPURGE tribe and many 
 of the plants are extremely poisonous ; but this 
 does not prevent the use of several families in 
 
SPURGEWORTS. 97 
 
 medicine ;* yet the fatal character of others is such 
 that no medical man would dare to prescribe them. 
 One foreign tree in particular, called the Manchi- 
 neel, which bears a handsome, apple-shaped fruit, 
 is so poisonous that persons are said to have died 
 by merely sleeping beneath its shade, while a 
 single drop of juice on the skin produces an ulcer 
 difficult to heal." 
 
 "Do you think it can be true, papa, about 
 people dying who sleep near it?" saidKobert. 
 
 " I am not qualified to judge of its truth," said 
 his father ; " but those who are so inform me, that 
 with so volatile a poison, it is not at all unlikely 
 that delicate persons might die from sleeping under 
 it, and breathing its dangerous atmosphere." 
 
 "What does ' volatile ' mean ?" asked Mary. 
 
 " A substance is said to be volatile," said her 
 father, " when it easily becomes vapour and escapes 
 into the surrounding air. Camphor is volatile ; 
 and hence its powerful odour is immediately per- 
 ceived, while its very substance becomes converted 
 into vapour." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Mary ; " the piece of camphor I 
 put with my dried plants has entirely wasted away." 
 
 * Euphorbia, Mercurialis, Croton, &c. 
 
 II 
 
98 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Kobert said that smelling-salts must be very 
 volatile, for when he left the stopple out of mam- 
 ma's smelling-bottle, all the scent and the salts too 
 went quite away in a few days. 
 
 " British Spurgeworts/' said his father, " are re- 
 markable for the singular structure of their green 
 flowers, and for an acrid milky juice, which burns 
 the tongue and throat. The unripe seeds of one 
 species are pickled instead of Capers, but they 
 form a dangerous substitute. The Wood Spurge* 
 is a common shrubby plant, two feet high, with 
 golden green leaves and flowers, and having in 
 autumn a red tinge on its stems and leaves. 
 
 '< Another very poisonous spurgewort," said his 
 father, " is the common mercury,! which grows 
 in bushy and shady places, and flowers in April 
 and May. This insignificant-looking plant has 
 produced convulsions and death, so that I must 
 again warn you against chewing any leaves, roots, 
 or berries of strange plants. Yet happily in this, 
 as in most poisons, the taste is so nauseous and 
 burning, that there is little temptation to trans- 
 gress." 
 
 " Is there anything poisonous about the box- 
 
 * Euphorbia atnygdaloides. f Mercurialis perennis. 
 
THE SPURGE TRIBE. 
 
 WOOD SPUBGE. 
 
100 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 tree itself?" asked Mary, " because I often gather 
 the little curled-up leaves to make cups and saucers 
 for my dolls." 
 
 " And you would not like them to drink out of 
 poisoned cups," said Henry, laughing. 
 
 " The leaves are very bitter," replied her father, 
 " and it is said that in those parts of Persia where 
 box-trees are common, it is impossible to keep 
 camels, because the animals cannot be prevented 
 from browsing on the leaves, which kill them ; yet, 
 on the other hand, we find that box-leaves have 
 sometimes been used instead of hops, to give a 
 bitter flavour to beer. The juices of plants of this 
 tribe must not, however, be all condemned as in- 
 jurious. The juice of a spurge* inhabiting Guayana 
 and Brazil yields the bottle India-rubber which 
 we are all familiar with." 
 
 " Will you tell us how those bottles are made, 
 papa ?" said Mary. 
 
 "They are made on clay moulds, which the 
 natives smear over with repeated layers of the 
 juice, drying it in the smoke. But we must pass on 
 to mention two small tribes, one of which, as its 
 only British specimen, contains our common crow- 
 
 * Siphonia elastica. 
 
MASTWORTS. 101 
 
 berry,* while the other has the remarkable growth 
 which you have seen represented in the pitcher- 
 plan t.^ We now rise to a higher group, and you 
 need only look round this room to see specimens 
 of the most important member of it." 
 
 The children did not see at first what their 
 father meant, but Henry soon recollected that the 
 old carved oak, of which the bookcases were made, 
 must be the specimen. 
 
 " You mean the good old English oak, papa," 
 said he. " The wooden walls of old England are 
 made of it, so we ought always to admire the oak." 
 Henry here had to explain to his brother and 
 sister, that by wooden walls he meant the ships 
 which protect our island ; and his father told him 
 that although the oak is chiefly employed in ship- 
 building, and is called the ' shipwright's treasure,' 
 yet other timber is also used, especially teak, a 
 fine timber which abounds in the East Indies. 
 
 Mary said that she remembered several other 
 uses of the oak, besides ship-building. " The gall- 
 nuts are used in making ink, the bark for tanning 
 leather, and the saw-dust for dyeing, besides the 
 acorns being used for feeding pigs." 
 
 * Empetrum nigrum. f Nepenthes distillatoria. 
 
102 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " The tribe of trees and bushes to which the oak 
 belongs," said her father, " has been conveniently 
 
 SPRIG OF OAK. 
 
 called MASTWORTS, because the fruit, contained in a 
 peculiar husk or cup, is called by country people 
 'mast.'" 
 
 "I have heard people talk about beech-mast," 
 said Kobert. 
 
MASTWORTS. 
 
 103 
 
 " Yes, and the fruits of the hazel, the Spanish 
 chestnut, and the oak, as well as of the beech, are 
 
 FLOWER AND RIPE FRUIT OF CHESTNTTT. 
 
 all called mast. These valuable trees inhabit thti 
 
104 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 forests of the temperate zone, both in the Old and 
 New World. Oaks and chestnuts are found on 
 the high lands within the tropics, but are unknown 
 on the low lands. Several species of beech flourish 
 far south, occurring in Van Diemen's Land, New 
 Zealand, and the lower parts of South America. 
 The timber is equally valuable when the tree 
 grows in warm countries. There is an astringent 
 principle pervading the whole tribe, which is valu- 
 able in medicine. Near to these, but not belong- 
 ing to Mastworts as you may know by the fruit, is 
 the common walnut, which is a native of Persia 
 and Cashmere, and is greatly valued in those 
 countries on account of its oil, which is employed 
 in cookery, and for burning in lamps/' 
 
 " I did not know that there was such a thing as 
 walnut-oil," said Mary, "until I saw it among 
 aunt's materials for oil painting." 
 
 " Among a great number of foreign plants having 
 a twining or scrambling habit, we find the NUT- 
 MEGS ;* although these have a tree-like growth, 
 and seem to resemble our common kurels. You 
 remember the fruit and leaf of the nutmeg which 
 
 * Myristica. 
 
THE NUTMEG TRIBE. 105 
 
 were sent to me from the West Indies, preserved 
 in spirit." 
 
 " Oh yes, papa," said Robert ; "the fruit was 
 something like a pear in shape, and the nutmeg 
 was like a kernel in the middle of the pulp. What 
 I thought the prettiest, was the red mace which was 
 wrapped round the kernel like a coarse net. It is 
 very odd that there should be two such different 
 spices in one fruit. I like nutmeg very much, but 
 I do not like mace at all." 
 
 " Perhaps you do not know that your favourite 
 nutmeg can only be taken safely in very small 
 quantities. Whatever the natives of India may 
 do, it is certain that a European taking this spice 
 in excess, would soon experience intense thirst 
 and headache, and perhaps delirium and death. 
 Nutmegs are tropical plants, and so are the various 
 families composing the CUCUMBER tribe, which is 
 the next I shall mention." 
 
 " Cucumbers grow in the open ground as well 
 as in hotbeds," said Mary, " and for that reason I 
 thought they were English plants." 
 
 "Vegetable Marrows and Gourds," said her 
 father, " also grow freely in the open ground, but 
 they are natives of hot countries, and so are 
 
106 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 melons, and all other members of this tribe. They 
 have a habit of climbing by means of long curling 
 tendrils, and in the wild state several species are 
 poisonous. Thus the pulp of the bottle-gourd* 
 has produced symptoms of cholera, and it is 
 recorded that some sailors were poisoned by drink- 
 ing beer that had been left in a flask made of one 
 of these gourds. The spirting cucumber -f- is a 
 virulent poison, and from its pulp is prepared the 
 powerful drug called Materium, a few grains of 
 which sometimes bring on symptoms of poisoning. 
 Our common white BryonyJ belongs to this tribe, 
 and partakes in the same qualities." 
 
 "Is it not dangerous to have anything to do 
 with such a tribe ?" asked Mary. 
 
 "It is necessary to use the fruit cautiously," 
 said her father ; " but cultivation improves many 
 of the species so much, that they lose nearly all 
 their baneful properties. It would be a pity to 
 give up our acquaintance with melons, cucumbers, 
 and vegetable marrows because some of their un- 
 cultivated relatives are dangerous characters. In- 
 deed, we are not at liberty to despise even these 
 
 * LagenaricL vulgaris. f Ecballum ogreste. 
 
 J Hn/nnia dioie.n. 
 
THE CUCUMBER TRIBE. 107 
 
 dangerous plants, for several valuable medicines 
 
 WHITE BRYONY. 
 
 are obtained from them, especially Colocyntk* 
 
 * Cucumis colocyntMs. 
 
108 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 The seeds of most of them are mild and harmless. 
 In an African species * these seeds, when ripe, are 
 as large as chestnuts, and resemble almonds in 
 flavour, yielding also an abundance of oil. The 
 pulp of the same fruit is excessively bitter, and 
 produces violent headache when only applied to 
 the tongue." 
 
 Henry thought it very odd that the seed should 
 be wholesome and the pulp poisonous, which is the 
 case with nearly all the plants of this tribe. He 
 was told that the BEGONIAS of our conservatories, 
 whose red- veined leaves are so much admired, and 
 whose whole foliage is sometimes of a deep rose 
 colour, t are not far removed from cucumbers, and 
 that some of the species have the same scrambling 
 habit. 
 
 "Allied in many respects to cucumbers, is a 
 strange and remarkable tribe of South American 
 plants, of which we will take the PAP AW as an 
 example. This extraordinary tree has the property 
 of making the toughest animal substances tender, 
 so that newly-killed meat, when hung amongst its 
 leaves, becomes fit for cooking in a few hours." 
 
 * Telfairia pedata. f Segonia sanguinea. 
 
THE PAPAW TRIBE. 109 
 
 " What a convenient tree that would be for our 
 kitchen garden !" said Mary. 
 
 " Still more strange is it," continued her father, 
 " that old hogs and poultry, when fed on its leaves, 
 become also tender, and fit for the purposes of the 
 table, in the course of a few hours." 
 
 " We really ought to have it in England," said 
 Henry. " If it would not bear our cold winters, 
 we could keep it in a hothouse, and it would be 
 worth the trouble." 
 
 "Perhaps its curious properties would be lost 
 under artificial cultivation," said his father ; " and 
 at any rate there would be disagreeable effects 
 to set against the convenience of having such a 
 tree." 
 
 " How so, papa ?" 
 
 "The roots of this tree have a most disgusting 
 and overpowering smell, like decaying animal 
 matter, and the blossoms also have a disagreeable 
 odour. The juice, when analysed, greatly resem- 
 bles animal albumen, dissolving like it in water. 
 Fibrin, a principle which is considered peculiar to 
 the animal kingdom, is found in this tribe,, and also 
 in the fungus tribe, which causes both tribes to 
 be peculiarly interesting to those who love to 
 
110 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 search out the wonders and difficulties of the vege- 
 table world. These papaws are, indeed, so unac- 
 countable in their properties, that I should have 
 hesitated to tell you about them, except on the 
 best authority. Eemind me to give you their 
 history at greater length from Hooker's account of 
 them in the Botanical Magazine" 
 
 "Thank you, papa, I shall not forget it," said 
 Henry. 
 
 His father now began to speak of that beautiful 
 tribe of climbing plants called the PASSION-FLOWEK 
 tribe. 
 
 Mary said she knew why they were called pas- 
 sion-flowers, for her mamma had shown her all the 
 parts of the flower, which were supposed to repre- 
 sent the instruments of our Lord's passion or 
 sufferings. 
 
 " There were the three nails in the centre," she 
 said, " and round them the five wounds, and out- 
 side them the crown of thorns, with the upright 
 column in the middle, for the pillar of scourging." 
 
 Eobert said he did not understand how three 
 nails could make five wounds ; but his sister 
 reminded him that one wound was from the sol- 
 dier's spear, and also that, in crucifixion, the feet 
 
THE TASSION-FLOWER TRIBE. Ill 
 
 were usually crossed, and one nail driven through 
 both, so that the four wounds of the hands and 
 feet might be made by three nails. The children 
 were talking thus in a low voice, on the solemn 
 subject of our Lord's crucifixion, when their father 
 told them that the idea of connecting the passion- 
 flower with that awful event was adopted by some 
 zealous Roman Catholics, when they first saw 
 these splendid plants blossoming in their native 
 woods, and climbing about from tree to tree in 
 wild magnificence. 
 
 "And where are their native woods?" asked 
 Henry. 
 
 "Chiefly in South America and the West 
 Indies, where the fruit of some species is eaten, 
 and where infusions of the flowers are used as a 
 remedy for coughs, and a poultice of the leaves is 
 used to subdue erysipelas and other eruptions on 
 the skin. It would not be safe, however, to em- 
 ploy the passion-flower for such purposes in this 
 country, as the tribe possesses active and danger- 
 ous qualities." 
 
 " At this part of the vegetable kingdom we must 
 pass over several tribes of plants, natives of hot 
 countries, only mentioning a familiar species, 
 
112 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 called the Arnotto plant,* whose orange-coloured 
 waxen pulp, when separated from the seeds and 
 
 AKNOTTO PLANT. 
 
 dried, forms cheese-colouring, and is also used in 
 the preparation of chocolate. We next pause at 
 
 * Bixa orellana. 
 
THE VIOLET TRIBE. 
 
 113 
 
 the VIOLET tribe, which, besides our sweet violets,* 
 dog-violets,^ and pansies, contains also many 
 
 DOG-VIOLET AND SWEET VIOLET. 
 
 foreign herbs, emetic in their properties, and known 
 to us under the name of Ipecacuanha. The roots 
 
 Viola odorata. 
 
 t F. canina. 
 I 
 
114 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 of our sweet violet have similar qualities, and the 
 petals and seeds are likewise medicinal. 
 
 Henry remembered reading that violet flowers 
 were made into wine by the Romans, and also 
 that they are still used in the East to make sherbet. 
 His father told him, that this tribe does not con- 
 sist wholly of small herbs, such as our own violet, 
 but that some of the foreign families are berry- 
 bearing shrubs, and one has a twining stem.* 
 
 "Do you remember, Mary," said her father* 
 "the beautiful shrubs which fenced some of the 
 gardens at Shanklin, when we last visited the Isle 
 of Wight?" 
 
 " Oh yes, papa ; they were the prettiest I ever 
 saw, with very slender branches like beautiful 
 smooth rods, and covered with tiny leaves of a 
 bright green. I was surprised to see them grow- 
 ing so close to the sea." 
 
 "I remember them," said Henry; "they were 
 something like young withy bushes, only the 
 leaves were smaller and brighter, and the stems 
 were red. They grew along the edge of the sea- 
 wall, and in winter I should think they were often 
 washed by the tide." 
 
 * Corynostylis, 
 
THE TAMARISK TKIBE. 
 
 BLOSSOM OF THE TAUABISS. 
 
116 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " They are tamarisks/' said his father ; " and 
 their natural place is by the sea-side, although 
 they are occasionally seen on the brink of rivers 
 and torrents. Their bark is bitter and astringent, 
 and the galls of some species are used in dyeing. 
 One species* bears a sort of manna, but this 
 appears to ooze from the tree, in consequence of 
 injuries by an insect^ inhabiting it. The flowers 
 of the tamarisk are in close spikes, and altogether 
 it is one of the prettiest of shrubs. All the species 
 are confined to the Northern hemisphere, and even 
 to its Eastern half. Our next tribe will be a more 
 familiar one ; for there is scarcely an old moss- 
 grown cottage or wall in the village on which you 
 may not find a specimen of the HOUSELEEK tribe." 
 
 " There is a beautiful one," said Mary, " among 
 the moss on the thatched shed over the saw-pit. 
 It has fleshy leaves spreading out and fringed all 
 round; and last summer there was a handsome 
 bunch of rose-coloured flowers on a tall stem in 
 the middle. And this stem had a great many 
 leaves upon it, but they were small narrow ones, 
 very different from those at the root. How much 
 I wished for that beautiful blossom ! I asked the 
 
 * Tamarix mannifera. f Coccus manniparus. 
 
THE HOUSELEEK TRIBE. 117 
 
 sawyers to get it down for me ; but they were so 
 busy at their work, that they did not attend to me." 
 
 "Of course not!" said Henry. "You should 
 have asked me to climb the shed, as I did the 
 garden wall, when you wanted a heap of yellow 
 stonecrop that was growing there." 
 
 " The different sorts of stonecrop* are members 
 Of the houseleek tribe," said his father, " as well 
 as the common houseleek,-}" which Mary has been 
 describing. There is also the Mossy Tilloea, or 
 Eed-shanks, with red creeping stems and white 
 flowers, common on the sandy heaths of Norfolk 
 and Suffolk ; and there is the Nayelwort, with 
 purplish stems and pale-yellow flowers. All these 
 and many foreign species make up a tribe, in- 
 teresting in its hardy habit and power of growing 
 almost without any soil. They are found on naked 
 rocks, sandy plains, and spots where not a blade of 
 grass will grow." 
 
 " I have often wondered," said Mary, " how the 
 stonecrop could live upon a wall where there is no 
 earth for it, and where on sunny days it is so hot 
 that I can scarcely bear my hand upon the bricks." 
 
 "These plants get their nourishment chiefly 
 * Sedum. f Sempervivum. 
 
118 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 from the air, and are covered with little pores or 
 mouths, invisible to the naked eye. Some of the 
 species, when boiled in milk, are eaten by country 
 people, and are considered cooling and wholesome. 
 The Greenlanders use one of the tribe* as food ; 
 but the common biting stoiiecrop, or wall-pepper,-f- 
 which is so abundant in this neighbourhood, acts 
 on many constitutions as an emetic. It is with the 
 fresh leaves of a houseleekj that thf! fishermen of 
 Madeira rub their nets, which are thus rendered 
 as durable as if tanned, being also steeped in some 
 alkaline liquor." 
 
 " It is a good thing that some of the houseleeks 
 are wholesome," said Eobert, " because they grow 
 where nothing else can grow ; and I dare say the 
 poor Greenlanders are very glad with vegetable 
 food, and so must the people be who have to cross 
 sandy plains and deserts." 
 
 " It is a wonderful provision of the Almighty," 
 said his father, "that these humble plants should 
 be able to bear the extremes of heat and cold, and 
 to flourish in situations where our hardiest mosses 
 would be destroyed." 
 
 * Rhodiola rosea. f Sedum acre. 
 
 J Sempervivum glutinosum* 
 
CONVERSATION VIL 
 
 CISTUS CRUCIFEROUS MIGNONETTE COTTON NASTURTIUM 
 
 LIME MILKWORT, AND SOAPWORT TRIBES. 
 
 AMONG Mary's dried plants were some blossoms 
 of the Gum Cistus, that handsome shrub which 
 drops its large white crumpled flowers almost as 
 soon as they appear, but sends forth also every 
 day others to take their place. Mary had col- 
 lected a number of the fallen blossoms during the 
 previous summer, and her father now called for 
 them as an example of the CISTUS, or HOCK-ROSE 
 tribe. 
 
 "These plants," he said, "are some of the most 
 elegant and fragrant in the South of Europe, 
 where they abound in woods and among rocks. 
 But we have a few of their relations growing wild 
 in our own woods, and one of them is the yellow 
 flower that Mary admired so much on yonder hill- 
 side, last July." 
 
 "You mean the pale-yellow flower, that I 
 mistook at a distance for a buttercup ; but it was 
 much more delicate, and the blossom was a little 
 
!20 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 OOmtOK ROCK-BOSK. 
 
CROSS-BEARING FLOWERS. 121 
 
 crumpled, and easily fell off. The stem was woody, 
 like a little shrub, and the leaves were white 
 underneath." 
 
 " That is the common rock-rose,* and there are 
 others of its family with which you may one day 
 make acquaintance ; such as the hoary dwarf rock- 
 rose of the North of England, and the white moun- 
 tain rock-rose, which grows in some parts of 
 Somerset and Devon. I am not aware of any 
 useful qualities ascribed to these plants, therefore 
 I leave them for a most important and highly 
 useful tribe called the CRUCIFEROUS tribe." 
 
 "That must have something to do with 'a 
 cross,' " said Henry. " Is there any fancy about 
 them, such as there is about the passion-flower ?" 
 
 " No ; but each plant is actually a ' cross-bearer,' 
 as its name implies, for the flowers of the whole 
 tribe are in the form of a cross." 
 
 ?< What an odd shape for a flower ?" said Mary ; 
 and she tried to recollect seeing one, but in vain, 
 until her father explained that he meant that sort 
 of cross, called the Maltese cross, in which the 
 limbs are all equal. Then she quickly remem- 
 bered, that the common single wallflower has four 
 
 * Hdiantlutmum vulgare. 
 
122 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 petals opposite each other, in the shape of a 
 Maltese cross. 
 
 "And so has the stock, and the rocket, and 
 honesty," said Robert ; 
 " and they all grow in my 
 garden." 
 
 ' And so has water- 
 cress," said Henry, "and 
 cabbage and turnip, and 
 a great many useful 
 things. I have often no- 
 ticed their flowers being 
 all of the same shape, 
 but I did not know they 
 were cross-bearers." 
 
 " These flowers are like 
 mamma has told me that 
 every one, even a little child, has a cross to bear." 
 "What does mamma mean by that?" asked 
 Robert. 
 
 " She means, that we have things to disappoint 
 us and make us sorry, and things to tease us and 
 make us angry, and that we must learn to bear 
 them all without being fretful or unkind. This is 
 what mamma calls taking up our cross." 
 
 BLOSSOM OP THE WALLFLOWER. 
 
 us," said Mary; "for 
 
QUALITIES OF CRUCIFERS. 
 
 123 
 
 " It is very difficult to help being angry when 
 you are teased and worried," said Henry. 
 
 "Then tuke care you never tease and worry 
 other people," said Mary. " I shall always fancy," 
 she continued, "that these cross-bearing plants 
 are very patient, mild, amiable flowers, that will 
 not do harm to any one." 
 
 COMMON HEDGE-MTISTARD. 
 
 (Sisymbrium officinate.) 
 
 "In some respects, you have guessed their 
 qualities well," said her father; "for it is a fact 
 
124 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 that they do no harm to any one, but on the con- 
 trary are many of them very wholesome and 
 valuable vegetables : such as the cabbage, which 
 you see in all the cottage gardens of our village, 
 and the turnip, whose benefits to our flocks, and 
 indeed to our whole system of farming, are almost 
 endless. Sea-kale, rape, mustard, cress, radish, 
 and water-cress, are also valuable members of this 
 extensive tribe, which is not only of use in this 
 way, but in furnishing oil from the seeds. Kape- 
 oil is in very common use, and the crushed seeds, 
 or refuse from the oil, make the well-known oil- 
 cake used in fattening cattle. Thus you see, that 
 cruciferous plants have a very important office in 
 the world, while they are so easy to be known, 
 that there is not much danger of mistaking them. 
 If you were to be shipwrecked on an uninhabited 
 island, and were to find a cross-bearing plant, you 
 need not fear to eat it, although it might not be 
 known to you." 
 
 " Is there no other flower that I might mistake 
 for it ?" asked Henry. 
 
 "Tliere are other flowers with four petals, 
 which, by a very careless observer, might perhaps 
 be taken for cruciferous flowers ; but not by any 
 
CHARACTERS OF CRUCIFERS. 
 
 125 
 
 one who has examined them well. You know 
 
 what I mean when I 
 
 speak of the stamens of 
 
 a flower, and you will 
 
 always find in these 
 
 flowers six stamens, two 
 
 of which are constantly 
 
 shorter than the other 
 
 four. But in order to 
 
 fix the memory of these 
 
 important plants, run 
 
 into the garden for a ( 
 
 sprig of early winter 
 
 cress, which is now in 
 
 blossom, or look into the 
 
 meadow beyond for a 
 
 cuckoo-flower." 
 
 The children all ran 
 off to execute this wel- 
 come commission, and 
 Mary was the first to espy a cuckoo-flower, or at 
 least, its near relation, the hairy cardamine ;* for 
 the real cuckoo-flowers, f or 
 
 " Ladies' smocks, all silver white, 
 
 That paint the meadows with delight," 
 * Cordamine hirsuta. t C. pratewif,. 
 
 SHEPHERD'S PURSE. 
 (Thlaspi bursa pastoris.) 
 
126 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 were not yet in blossom. Robert also brought 
 a small plant of shepherd's purse, which he had 
 pulled up in haste, root and all, because he saw 
 that its tiny white flowers were cross-shaped, and 
 Henry had dug out from the 
 garden wall an entire specimen 
 of Whitlow grass, which is 
 one of our smallest flowering 
 plants, and a very pretty one 
 too, when closely examined. 
 
 " If you want another mark 
 of this tribe besides that of the 
 cross-shaped blossoms," said 
 their father, "take notice of 
 the seed-vessel, which is either 
 a long pod, as in the carda- 
 mine, or a short pod, as in 
 shepherd's purse. If you open one of the pods, 
 you will see that it has a partition of thin mem- 
 brane down the middle." 
 
 "In this cardamine," said Mary, "there are 
 pods with the two sides curled up, and the parti- 
 tion standing alone." 
 
 " That is the way in which the seeds are dis- 
 persed, when they are fully ripe; the elastic 
 
 COMMON WHITLOW GRASS. 
 
 (Draba verna) . 
 
CHAKACTERS OF CRUCIFERS. 
 
 valves burst away, carry- 
 ing the seeds with them. 
 In some cases the pods 
 end in a sharp point 
 called the leak, as in char- 
 lock ; and if you have 
 ever seen the white salad 
 mustard when it has run 
 to seed, you must have 
 noticed the sword-shaped 
 beak in which the pod 
 ends. There are no seeds 
 in these beaks." 
 
 " I think I shall always 
 know one of these cross- 
 bearing plants when I 
 see it," saicL Mary. 
 
 " A %hirtl mark, which 
 may help you," said her 
 father, " is this ; most 
 flowers have two little 
 leaves called bracts, very 
 different from all the 
 other leaves, and situated 
 a little below the blos- 
 
 AttY CARDAMINE. (C. 
 
128 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 som, either on the flower-stalk, or at its base ; but 
 in cruciferous plants, these bracts are always ab- 
 sent." 
 
 FIELD MTTSTARD, OB CHARLOCK. 
 
 (Sinapis arvenis.) 
 
 "But there are leaves on the stem of the shep- 
 
FORMS OF SEED-VESSELS. 129 
 
 herd's purse very different from those at the root," 
 said Henry. 
 
 "True; and that is veiy common; but bracts 
 belong especially to the flower-stalk, not to the 
 general stem, and are very different from these." 
 
 " Then if I find a flower in the shape of a cross, 
 and having pods with a partition down the middle, 
 
 8TVOBD-SHAPED BEAKS OV THE SEED-PODS OF WHITE MUSTARD. 
 
 and netted veined leaves, and no bracts, I may be 
 quite sure it is one of these Crucifers, and safe to 
 eat, if I cannot get a better salad," said Henry. 
 
 " Certainly : but as your observations may not 
 be at first correct, I advise you to bring your salad 
 to me before you eat it." 
 
 Mary remembered that in looking for shepherd's 
 purse for her bird, she had once found a plant very 
 much like it, but with larger and rounder pods. 
 Her father thought from her description that it 
 
 K 
 
130 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 must have been penny cress,* so called from the 
 seed-vessel being about the size of a 
 silver penny. 
 
 " In leaving these interesting 
 plants," he said, "which have de- 
 tained us longer than usual, I must 
 SEED-VESSEL OF mention one that has been the sub- 
 
 PEXNY-CRESS. . .... T . . n 1 ,t 
 
 ject oi superstition. It is called the 
 Eose of Jericho, and has the curious property 
 of contracting its branches into a ball. In this 
 state it is caught up by the wind of the Egyptian 
 deserts, where it grows wild, and is hurried from 
 place to place. On being put into water, how- 
 ever, it revives, and spreads out in its natural form. 
 One of the old legends states, that this plant first 
 bloomed on Christmas eve, to celebrate our Sa- 
 viour's birth, and remained in blossom till Easter, 
 to do homage to his resurrection. But let us now 
 proceed to the next tribe, which is MIGNONETTE, 
 consisting of weeds only, but one of these so fra- 
 grant, that it is admitted into our gardens. 
 Lindley calls these plants We^dworts, from one of 
 them, called Weld, which yields a yellow dye." 
 Mary scarcely liked to hear mignonette called 
 * TJilaspi arvense. 
 
THE MALLOW TRIBE. 
 
 131 
 
 a weed; but her father passed on to notice the 
 CAPEKS, from the flower-buds of one of which we 
 get our well-known pickle. He said that the 
 
 COMMON MALLOW. 
 
 qualities of this tribe resemble those of Crucifers, 
 but are more powerful ; and that the plants are 
 
132 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 very common in tropical countries, without being 
 so generally useful as Crucifers are to us. 
 
 " We now come to several tribes, more or less 
 nearly connected with our common MALLOWS,* but 
 as some of them are wholly tropical, and have 
 very 6 hard names/ I must select particular families 
 for notice, such as the noble-looking cotton-trees f 
 
 THX COTTON PLANT. 
 
 (Gossypium,) 
 
 of the East and West Indies, whose seeds are 
 
 wrapped up in a woolly substance, which is not, 
 
 however, the true cotton of commerce, this being 
 
 * Malva. f Bombftx. 
 
THE LIME TRIBE. 133 
 
 obtained from several species of the shrubs called 
 cotton plants,* also inhabitants of the same coun- 
 tries, and belonging to a neighbouring tribe. Also 
 the useful trees which produce the seeds called 
 cacao, or cocoa, the chief ingredient in chocolate." 
 
 U I used to be puzzled about cocoa," said Henry, 
 " fancying that it came from the cocoa-nut palm." 
 
 "It is obtained from a small tree,f of which 
 there are extensive forests in Demerara. The 
 pulp which surrounds the seeds is distilled into an 
 ardent spirit. A neighbouring tribe to this is the 
 NASTURTIUM tribe, consisting wholly of North and 
 South American plants." 
 
 " I fancied," said Mary, " that nasturtiums were 
 poisonous; it was their strong smell that made 
 me think so ; but mamma says that the seeds are 
 often pickled and used instead of capers." 
 
 The children were surprised to hear that the 
 next tribe to this was the LIME tribe, and that 
 only a small number of these are forest trees, 
 while the great proportion are weed-like plants 
 or shrubs, or small trees found within the tropics, 
 and resembling, in many respects, our common 
 mallows. 
 
 * Gossypium. t Theobroma cacao. 
 
134 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "I am now going to describe a group consist- 
 ing of many separate tribes and families, but all 
 in some measure connected by certain botanical 
 characters, one of the most evident of which is that 
 they all have irregular flowers." 
 
 "How do you mean, papa?" 
 
 " I mean, that instead of the petals being of a 
 regular and uniform shape, such as in Crucifers 
 and others, they are by no means uniform, some 
 of the petals being fashioned into little hoods or 
 fringes, or in some way differing from the rest." 
 
 "Then I am sure the little blue milkwort,* 
 that we found on the hill side, ought to be one of 
 them," said Mary ; " for when mamma took off 
 the petals to show us its curious shape, there 
 was a pretty little fringed hood to shelter the 
 stamens." 
 
 "And it does, in fact, belong to this group, 
 giving its name to the MILKWORT tribe. Our little 
 milkwort was so called because it was supposed to 
 improve the milk of cows that fed on it, and it 
 has also the reputation of being useful in diseases 
 of the lungs. Another species,f however, contains 
 far more of the bitter principle which has gained 
 
 * Polygala vulgaris. t P amara. 
 
THE SOAPWORT TRIBE. 135 
 
 this reputation. Some of the foreign milkworts 
 furnish dyes, and one is soapy in its nature ; so 
 that the bark of the root, merely agitated in water, 
 produces a froth ; or it may be pounded and made 
 into washballs. With these the ladies of Peru are 
 said to wash their beautiful hair, while the silver- 
 smiths employ them in cleansing and polishing 
 their goods. And this soapy quality prevails so 
 much in another tribe as to give the name of 
 SOAPWORTS.* The fruit of several of them lathers 
 freely, and one especially is used in the West 
 Indies instead of soap ; it is said to cleanse more 
 linen than sixty times the same weight of soap 
 would do." 
 
 " How convenient it would be to have one of the 
 soapworts growing in our garden !" said Mary. 
 
 " We have one of them/' replied her father ; 
 "but it possesses this quality very faintly, and 
 only in the seeds. The horse-chestnut t is the one 
 I allude to; but I have never heard that the 
 soapy quality of its seeds has been made useful 
 in any way, although it doubtless imparts the rich- 
 ness to them which, in Switzerland, causes them 
 to be valued for fattening sheep." 
 
136 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " I was told not to eat horse-chestnuts, because 
 they are hurtful," said Kobert. 
 
 LEAF AND FLOWER-BUDS OF TIIK HORSE-CHESTNUT. 
 
 " They are neither wholesome, nor agreeable : 
 even with the Genevese sheep, the fruit is crushed 
 and given cautiously in small quantities. Several 
 of the soapworts are dangerous plants; and in 
 
THE MAPLE TRIBE. 137 
 
 Brazil the Blacks prepare a poison from one of 
 the species, which slowly, but certainly, destroys 
 life. Not far from the horse-chestnut, but with 
 sugary properties, instead of soapy, is the MAPLE 
 tribe, from the sap of some species of which sugar 
 is obtained in abundance." 
 
 "Maple-leaves are very pretty," said Mary, 
 "they turn to a bright yellow in autumn, with 
 specks of red and brown." 
 
 "That is the Lesser Maple," said her father, 
 " which is scarcely ever seen as a tree, but is cul- 
 tivated as a hedge-row bush, for which it is well 
 fitted by its rapid growth. But the Greater Maple, 
 or Sycamore, is a very fine tree, and grows like a 
 weed in this country, although it is not a native." 
 
 " A number of young sycamores are coming up 
 in my garden/' said Henry. " The winged seed- 
 vessels (which we call bunches of keys from their 
 odd shape) are blown by the wind from the large 
 sycamore in the paddock ; and the seeds take 
 root easily in my flower-beds." 
 
 "Is there any sugar in our sycamore?" asked 
 Eobert. 
 
 " Sugar has been obtained from the sap of the 
 sycamore, and the blossoms so abound in honey 
 
138 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 that it is a favourite tree with bees ; but it is from 
 a North American species * that maple-sugar is 
 obtained in sufficient quantities to reward the 
 manufacturer." 
 
 "You have told us of several plants which pro- 
 duce sugar," said Henry : " but when shall we 
 come to the tea-plants ?" 
 
 " I am just going to introduce you to the group 
 to which they belong, and which includes tribes of 
 various growth ; but most of them remarkable for 
 producing abundance of resin." 
 
 " I have read an account of the tea-plant/' said 
 Mary, "and they say it is about the size of a 
 gooseberry bush/' 
 
 " Then I fear," said her father, " that you have so 
 connected it with a gooseberry bush in your mind, 
 that I shall not be able to give you a true idea of 
 the plant until we visit some botanical garden 
 where a specimen may be seen." 
 
 "The leaves are like gooseberry leaves, are 
 they not, papa ?" 
 
 " Go and ask for some tea-leaves in the kitchen, 
 and examine for yourself," said her father. 
 
 Mary soon brought some damp tea-leaves ; but 
 * Acer saccliarinum. 
 
1HE TEA TRIBE. 139 
 
 in spreading them open, she found that there was 
 scarcely one in a perfect state, but all looked as if 
 they had been cut in small pieces. Yet, after 
 some search, she found one less injured than the 
 rest, and was surprised to see that it was a long 
 smooth leaf, pointed at the end, and slightly notched 
 at the edges. " This is more like a small laurel 
 leaf, or bay leaf," said she, " than it is like a 
 gooseberry leaf." 
 
 " Exactly ; and when you see the TEA plant,* 
 you will say it is like a young laurel bush, or 
 rather like a camellia japonica, which, indeed, is 
 its near relation, and belongs to the same tribe." 
 
 " Are those beautiful camellias of any use V 
 
 "An excellent table-oil is extracted from the 
 seeds of one of the camellias,t but I believe the 
 chief use of which we are aware, is the beautifying 
 of our houses and conservatories by the rich red 
 or white blossoms of the flowers. Not far from 
 the camellias is a tribe of plants yielding gums 
 and resins, which also contains the mangosteen,^ 
 said to be the most delicious of all fruits." 
 
 " What is it like ?" asked Eobert. 
 
 * Tliea viridis* f Camellia d&ifera. 
 
 % Garcinia mangostana. 
 
140 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " In size it resembles an orange, and it is filled 
 with a very sweet and delightful pulp. It thrives 
 greatly in the hot, damp atmosphere of Malacca. 
 The same tribe produces the Mammee Apple or 
 Wild Apricot of South America, which is said to 
 rival the mangosteen. From some member of this 
 tribe also comes the acrid yellow gum known in 
 commerce as gamboge" 
 
 " I have some in my paint-box," said Robert. 
 
 "I must now recall to your recollection the 
 different kinds of ST. JOHN'S WORT that frequently 
 enliven our hedge-rows and pastures with their 
 yellow blossoms about Midsummer-day (the feast 
 of St. John). Also that interesting plant called 
 Grass of Parnassus, which is less common here, 
 because we have not much of the boggy soil in 
 which it delights." 
 
 "But these are not gummy plants, are they, 
 papa ?" said Henry. 
 
 " They are not, or at least their properties are 
 not developed in this climate; but some of their 
 American relatives yield a sufficient quantity of 
 gum to make them known in commerce, while 
 others, and even some of our own species, have 
 been used medicinally. And now I will conclude 
 
WATER-LILY TRIBE. 141 
 
 this conversation with a few words on WATER 
 LILIES, which, with some foreign plants called 
 
 8T. JOHS'S WOBT. 
 
 Water Shields, and Water Beans, form the next 
 tribes." 
 
142 FIRST STEPS IK GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Mary had heard her mamma call the white water- 
 lily the queen of British flowers, and she now 
 learnt that in botanical language it is named after 
 the water-nymphs which were fabled to inhabit 
 streams. Both the white water-lily* and the 
 
 THE WHITE WATEE-LILY. 
 
 yellow water-lilyf grew in a slow-running river 
 not far from her home, and she naturally thought 
 them the most beautiful of all water plants ; but 
 her father now told her that in South America 
 * Nymphsea alba. t Nuphar lutea. 
 
"VICTORIA JREGINA." 
 
 143 
 
 there is a splendid plant resembling our water- 
 lily, but of such enormous size, that people take 
 a boat and row round it in order to examine its 
 leaves and blossoms. " This beautiful and extra- 
 ordinary flower," says he, " measures more than a 
 yard in circumference, and its leaves are two 
 yards wide f The plant has been named Victoria 
 Regina, in honour of our queen. In South Ame- 
 rica it is called Water Maize, the seeds being 
 eagerly sought after in times of scarcity by the 
 natives, who use them either boiled or raw." 
 
CONVERSATION VIII. 
 
 RANUNCULUS POPPY FUMITORY SUN-DEW BARBERRY, AND 
 VINE TRIBES. 
 
 THE pastures now began to be sprinkled with 
 buttercups and marsh marigolds, and the banks 
 with the little starry celandine, so that the chil- 
 dren were able to mix those showy yellow blossoms 
 with the budding hawthorn, and the pale cuckoo- 
 flowers, which they gathered for the 1st of May. 
 There was a rustic seat under an old acacia on the 
 lawn, and when their mamma came down to break- 
 fast on an unusually warm May-day, she found 
 the young folks adorning this seat with hawthorn 
 boughs, and hanging wreaths on the rugged trunk 
 of their favourite tree. The prettiest of these 
 wreaths was oifered to mamma, and Mary was de- 
 lighted to hear it very much admired, and to see 
 her mamma wearing it as a trimming to her 
 bonnet, when they walked through the village that 
 morning. The little girl also had plenty of May 
 blossoms in her large straw hat, and the village 
 
THE RANUNCULUS TRIBE. 145 
 
 children were carrying about hoops made of withy, 
 and loaded with marsh marigolds, or else they 
 
 TIIE SMALL CELANDINE, OR PILE WOET. 
 
 (Ficaria verna.) 
 
 carried sticks with a few flowers tied to the top, 
 making a shabby kind of May-pole. 
 
 " What a pleasant May-day," said Mary, " and 
 how gay the meadows look with buttercups !" 
 
 L 
 
146 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " All the flowers you call buttercups," said her 
 father, "belong to the RANUNCULUS tribe, the word 
 being formed from the Latin for a frog (rana). 
 Can you guess why they are so named ?" 
 
 CHEEPING CROWFOOT. 
 
 (Ranunculus repens.") 
 
 Eobert guessed that it was because frogs are 
 yellow ; Mary guessed that it was because they 
 have bright eyes; Henry guessed that it was 
 because they are fond of damp places. And 
 Henry was right. 
 
 "Buttercups, larkspurs, columbines, anemones, 
 hellebore, monk's-hood, pseony, pheasant's eye. 
 
THE EANUNCUkUS TRIBE. 147 
 
 herb-Christopher, clematis, and others, which be- 
 long to this tribe, all prefer a cold, damp climate, 
 and it is very seldom that any of them are met 
 with in the tropics, except on mountains." 
 
 FIELD LARKSPUR. ENTIRE-LEAVED PJEONY. 
 
 ^Delphinium consolida.") (Paonia, corallina.) 
 
 "Some of them are poisonous, are they not, 
 papa?" said Mary. 
 
 " All of them are suspicious, and some are vio- 
 lent poisons. If you were to gather buttercups 
 for an hour or two, you would most likely find 
 
148 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 your little hands blistered, especially if you met 
 with two kinds of buttercup which are noted for 
 producing that effect.* If you were to chew the 
 
 HEBL-CHBISTOPHEB, OB BANEBEBBY. 
 
 KONK'S-HOOD. 
 
 (Aconitum napellus.') 
 
 leaves or blossoms of the monk's-hood, you would 
 soon become dangerously ill." 
 
 " Monk's-hood and larkspur are not at all like 
 buttercups," said Henry; "why are they put in 
 the same tribe ?" 
 
 * Ranunculus flammula. R. sceleratus, 
 
T) 
 
 ^ATH THE CARPELS. 
 
 THE POPPY TRIBE. 149 
 
 " Their flowers are not alike, but their qualities 
 are similar, and the arrangement of their seed- 
 vessels is the same. Examine the carpels or seed- 
 vessels, and the stamens growing from beneath 
 them in the buttercup, and you 
 have the key to the relation- 
 ship, although there are many 
 trifling differences. Some of the 
 foreign tribes related to ranun- 
 culus produce splendid flowers, 
 
 L A 
 
 especially the Magnolia tribe, 
 
 which contains some of the finest trees and shrubs 
 
 in the world. The poppy tribe also claims re- 
 
 lationship with ranunculus : but its 
 
 juices are milky, instead of watery, 
 
 and the seed-vessels are not distinct, 
 
 but grow together into one head." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Kobert, " I know 
 what poppy-heads are, for I helped 
 mamma to shake the seeds out from POPPY-HEAD. 
 those we had in the garden last summer." 
 " And mamma says that the Great Celandine, 
 which grows in hedges, and has those bluish 
 leaves, is related to the poppies, and is poisonous," 
 said Marv. 
 
150 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 QOMMOK CELANDINE. 
 
QUALITIES OF THE POPPY. 
 
 151 
 
 " It is so, and you might guess it by the strong 
 odour of the plant, and of the thick yellow juice 
 which runs from it when you break the stem. 
 It is well to notice this particularly, because the 
 pod which follows the flower is not much un- 
 like that of a cruciferous plant, and it might be 
 fatal to mistake one for the other. The beautiful 
 Escholtzia of our garden, and the yellow-horned 
 poppy we saw at Brighton, also have long pods, 
 but no one could reason- 
 ably mistake them for 
 crucifers." 
 
 Henry asked if opium 
 was not obtained from the 
 white poppy, and his fa- 
 ther replied in the affirm- 
 ative, telling him at the 
 same time, that in the 
 case of this drug, men 
 have turned a blessing 
 into a curse. The chil- 
 dren wondered how opium 
 
 .. - .. . * TELLOW-HOKNED POPPY. 
 
 COULd be a bleSSing tO (Glauciumluteum.^ 
 
 any one, until they were told that medical men 
 use it to subdue pain and convulsions, and that 
 
152 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 it is only by the evil passions of men that it has 
 been diverted from its proper use, and has been 
 
 COMMON FUMITORY. (Fumajria oflcinalisj 
 
 made a means of destruction to mind and body, 
 Henry had read an account of the fatal condition 
 
FUMITORY AND SUNDEW TRIBES. 153 
 
 of opium-eaters, and lie was not surprised to hear 
 his father speak strongly of the vice and misery 
 of those unhappy persons, 
 
 As the children proceeded on their walk, they 
 found, in the loose soil at the hedge of a corn-field, 
 an elegant little plant which they knew well, but 
 which they had seldom seen in blossom quite so 
 early. It was the common fumitory, with rose- 
 coloured blossoms, tipped with purple. 
 
 " What a dear little flower this is," said Mary, 
 "to come out in May, and keep on blowing till 
 November !" 
 
 " The FUMITORY tribe," said her father, " is not 
 far removed from poppies, and your favourite plant 
 was once in great request among superstitious 
 persons, because the smoke of it was declared by 
 the ancient exorcists to have the power of driving 
 away evil spirits. Hence the name fumitory r , from 
 fumus, smoke. Close upon this tribe come the 
 SUNDEW, the BARBERRY, and the VINE tribes." 
 
 At the name of sundew, Mary, who generally 
 had a scrap of poetry connected with her favourite 
 flowers, began thus : 
 
 " By the lone fountain's secret bed, 
 Where human footsteps rarely tread, 
 'Mid the wild moor or silent glen, 
 The sundew blooms unseen by men." 
 
154 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " Do not repeat any more," said Henry, "unless 
 there is anything said about the leaves being fly- 
 
 EOUND-LEAVED suHDEW. (Drosera rotundifolia.) 
 
 traps. I know there are little hairs all round 
 
THE BARBERRY TRIBE. 
 
 155 
 
 the leaves, and that insects are caught in them, 
 and cannot get away because they are so gummy." 
 
 u Of course there is nothing said about that in 
 poetry," said Mary. 
 
 "Well then," said Henry, I had rather talk 
 about the barberry, and 
 the vine, and their nice 
 fruit. What a beautiful 
 barberry bush that is in 
 the Eectory Garden ! In 
 the spring there are the 
 long strings of yellow 
 blossoms hanging down, 
 and in autumn the bright 
 red berries like clusters of 
 coral." 
 
 The stamens of the 
 barberry grow from be- 
 neath the oblong seed- 
 vessel, which is after- 
 wards the berry, and in 
 the full-grown flower 
 they always lie opposite 
 the petals. These sta- 
 mens are curious, for in the little knob at the top 
 
 COMMON BARBEEET. 
 
 (Herberts vulgaris.) 
 
156 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 of each, called the anther, there are two little 
 trap-doors opening backwards, to disperse the pol- 
 len, or seed-dust. 
 
 STAMENS OF THE BLOSSOM OP THE ANTHER OF THB 
 
 BARBERRY. BARBERRY. BARBEBBY. 
 
 The vine tribe is much more important, yield- 
 ing fruit that is delicious, whether fresh or dried, 
 and which makes a great variety of wines. Eaisins 
 and currants are very important as articles of 
 commerce. 
 
 Mary remembered her mamma saying that 
 currants are the dried fruit of a vine bearing 
 small black grapes, which used to be called 
 "corinths," because the vine grows plentifully 
 near Corinth ; but people have gradually changed 
 the name into " currants." 
 
 Her father remarked that the vine has a pecu- 
 liar interest to Christians, because our Lord and 
 Saviour employed the vine and its wide-spreading 
 
THE VINE TKIBE. 157 
 
 branches as an image of the union between Himself 
 and His people. At family prayers that evening 
 the children were again reminded of this blessed 
 union, for their father read the fifteenth chapter of 
 St. John, which begins with the words, " I am 
 the true vine, and my father is the husbandman." 
 
CONVERSATION IX. 
 
 HEATH KUE FLAX BALSAM GERANIUM WOOD-SORREL - 
 CLOVE BUCK WHEAT GOOSEFOOT LEGUMINOUS, ALMOND, 
 APPLE, AND ROSE TRIBES. 
 
 ONE day the children saw a villager mending 
 the thatch, of his cottage, not with straw, but with 
 heather, which their father explained to them to 
 be the elastic tufts of the common ling, a plant 
 that covers a large extent of open country, espe- 
 cially in the north, and affords both food and 
 shelter to abundance of grouse. Mary had a few 
 dried branches of the three plants of the heath 
 tribe which are common in this country, and these 
 were the common or fine-leaved heath,* with very 
 thick clusters of purplish flowers, and little tufts 
 of smooth leaves arranged three together on the 
 stem, the cross-leaved heath, | with a small tuft 
 of rose-coloured flowers quite at the top of the 
 stem, and fringed leaves four together on the stem 
 and the common ling,J which grows to a much 
 larger size than the others, and has pinkish flowers 
 scattered along the whole stem. 
 * Erica cinerea. t E. tetralix. J Cattuna mdgaris. 
 
THE HEATH TRIBE. 159 
 
 " These are very pretty plants," said her father ; 
 "but they are not to be 
 compared to the foreign 
 heaths, of which we see 
 beautiful specimens in 
 conservatories. There are 
 many other plants in- 
 cluded in the HEATH tribe, 
 which you are perhaps 
 little accustomed to con- 
 sider as relations of our 
 humble ling; for in- 
 stance, the Arbutus, the 
 Rhododendron, the Aza- 
 lea, and the Kalmia, all 
 great favourites of yours, 
 and very many more that 
 remain unknown to you, 
 being confined to the 
 tropics. Some of the 
 families bear succulent 
 berries, which are not un- 
 pleasant to the taste, and ^DEOSS-LEAVED HEATH. 
 are occasionally used as food. The arbutus, so 
 common in our gardens, bears tempting-looking 
 
160 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 strawberry-like fruit ; but this is so little palatable 
 that it has given the specific name of " unedo" 
 
 " one I eat," to the 
 shrub. The fruit 
 of several North 
 American families 
 is more grateful,and 
 the snow-white ber- 
 ries of the wax-clus- 
 ter,* which grows 
 freely in Tasmania, 
 are said to be by 
 no means unplea- 
 sant. The narcotic 
 qualities of many 
 of the tribe, how- 
 ever, render it dan- 
 gerous to eat their 
 fruit indiscrimi- 
 
 THE STRAWBERRY TREE. natety. But I UlUSt 
 
 now proceed to 
 
 several important tribes, having a bitter prin- 
 ciple common to all." 
 
 Gaultlieria hupida. 
 
TRIBES HAVING A BITTER PRINCIPLE. 161 
 
 " Are they British plants ?" asked Henry. 
 
 " Very few of them ; but we can find an example 
 in our common rue, which, you know, is bitter 
 enough." 
 
 " They must be disagreeable tribes if they are 
 like rue," said Henry. 
 
 " Wait till you know what they are, before you 
 decide against them," replied his father. " There 
 is the CITRON tribe, containing the orange, lemon, 
 shaddock, lime, citron, &c. These trees are mostly 
 natives of the East Indies, but have spread thence 
 to other tropical countries. Not only are the fruits 
 delicious; but the flowers are beautiful and fra- 
 grant, and the wood is hard and compact. The 
 orange-tree, when flourishing in a favourable soil 
 and climate, produces an enormous quantity of 
 fruit. It is stated that a single tree at St. Michael's 
 has been known to produce 20,000 oranges fit for 
 packing, exclusively of the damaged fruit and 
 waste." 
 
 "No wonder that oranges and lemons are so 
 plentiful and so cheap," said Henry ; " but one is 
 sweet and the other sour, and neither is bitter." 
 His father reminded him that the rind of the orange 
 and the seeds of the lemon are powerfully bitter ; 
 4, M 
 
162 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 and that the wood is also intensely bitter in most 
 of the families. 
 
 " In one of the neighbouring tribes," continued 
 his father, " we have myrrh and frankincense ; in 
 another mahogany * and other fragrant woods ; 
 the whole tribe consisting of trees with compact, 
 scented, and beautifully-veined timber, the bark of 
 several of which has been used successfully in India 
 in the cure of fever. Not far from these are trees 
 abounding in an acrid, resinous, and sometimes 
 highly-poisonous juice, which represent a tribe, 
 chiefly tropical, in which we find the cashew-nut, 
 the pistachio-nut, and the mango. The beautiful 
 zebra- wood of the cabinet-makers ; and the in- 
 tensely-bitter wood called ' quassia,' an infusion of 
 which is used to poison flies, and as a substitute for 
 hops, in making beer ; these belong to the following 
 tribes, which are more or less valuable in medicine. 
 We next come to the FLAX tribe." 
 
 "Flax is very pretty, and very useful too," 
 said Mary. "I once had a plant of it in my 
 garden, arid I could hardly believe that its little 
 delicate stems had fibres strong enough to make 
 linen." 
 
 * Swietenia maliagoni. 
 
THE FLAX TRIBE. 
 
 163 
 
 " If you admired a solitary plant, you would be 
 delighted with such large 
 fields of flax as I saw in 
 my journey from Ham- 
 burgh to Dresden. The i 
 tender green of such fields 
 pleasantly brought back 
 the remembrance of 
 spring, at a time when 
 the corn harvest was be- 
 ing gathered in. To the 
 same tribe belongs a 
 pretty little plant called 
 Flax-seed, very delicate 
 in its structure. The tribe 
 consists of annual or per- 
 ennial plants or even small 
 shrubs. The tenacity of 
 the fibre, and the oily 
 nature of the seeds are FLAX . (Limm US i ta tum.) 
 common to them all, and make these apparently 
 insignificant plants highly useful and important 
 Not far from these comes the CRANE'S-BILL or 
 GERANIUM tribe. 
 
 Mary was well acquainted with the pretty little 
 
164 FIRRT STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 wild geraniums of our hedges, especially with herb 
 Eobert,* whose rose-red blossoms peep out so pret- 
 
 FLAX-SEED. (Radiola millegramna.') 
 
 tily, and whose leaves and stems are all tinged 
 with red; and are nearly as ornamental as the 
 flowers ; she also remembered the handsome purple 
 meadow crane's-bill, the largest of all the wild gera- 
 niums ; Bobert asked why mamma called all 
 these plants crane's-bills, and he was told that 
 they are so called from the shape of the seed- 
 
 * Geranium Robert? anum. 
 
THE GERANIUM TRIBE. 
 
 165 
 
 vessel, which is very much like the bill of the 
 crane. 
 
 MKADOW CRANE'S-BILL. 
 
 " Another family of the geranium tribe is called 
 
166 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 stork's-bill," lie added, "and from a similar 
 cause." 
 
 " The geraniums of the greenhouse have seed- 
 vessels of that shape," said Mary ; " but they can- 
 not be related to the wild ones ; their flowers are 
 so different." 
 
 " The arrangement or colours of petals are 
 seldom of much importance in tracing the family 
 connections of plants," said her father : " the form 
 of the seed-vessel is of much greater consequence 
 together with the general principle or quality 
 which runs through the tribe. The geraniums of 
 our conservatory* are near relations of the wild 
 flowers of that name, and all possess aromatic and 
 astringent qualities. These very handsome flowers 
 grow wild in abundance at the Cape of Good 
 Hope and in New Holland ; while the damper 
 parts of India swarm with beautiful species of the 
 neighbouring tribe of BALSAMS, and multitudes are 
 also found in Ceylon. Our little WOOD-SORREL -f- is 
 a member of a tribe which approaches these, and 
 is remarkable, especially in the tropical species, 
 for the presence of oxalic acid. But we have a 
 host of British flowers connected with the pinks 
 
 * Pelargonium. t Oxalis acetosella. 
 
THE CLOVE TRIBE. 
 
 167 
 
 and CLOYES of our gardens, and to these I must 
 now turn." 
 
 " I dare say my little mountain-pink that grows 
 on the wall is one of them," said Mary. 
 
 " Yes ; and the common chickweed,* and the 
 pretty little stitchwort,t whofw white stars are 
 
 BLADDER-CAUTION. 
 
 common in hedges, and whose weak and slender 
 stems cannot stand upright without the support ot 
 
 * Sidlaria media. t S. gramin&i* 
 
168 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 neighbouring plants. And all the Catchfly family, 
 of which, perhaps, yon are best acquainted with 
 one that grows in corn-fields, called bladder- 
 campion,* because its calyx is swelled into a 
 bladder shape ; and all the sandworts,t and the 
 lychnis family, of which one is your favourite 
 ragged robin ;J and the purple corn-cockle, that 
 looks so handsome, but is so little wished for by 
 the farmer. All these belong to the Clove tribe ; 
 and I think you can hardly help noticing the 
 family likeness amongst them. As to any quality 
 common to all, I think they are classed more from 
 the absence than the presence of any such : being 
 ail insipid herbs, like their neighbours the pur- 
 slanes. Other relatives of theirs, forming the 
 BUCKWHEAT tribe, have a pleasant acid in their 
 leaves and shoots, and very bitter roots. The 
 common sorrel and dock, as well as the rhubarb, 
 so much used in tarts, belong to this latter tribe, 
 Buckwheat itself is one of a very large family of 
 plants common in hedges, ditches, and fields. 
 Some of these plants you know under the name of 
 snake-weed, knot-grass, Persicaria, &c. ; and they 
 
 * Silene inflata. t Arenaria. 
 
 % Lychnis Flos-cucuti. Agrostemma Githago. 
 
THE BUCKWHEAT TRIBE. 169 
 
 mav all be known by their numerous joints, which 
 
 gave the botanical name of Polygonum^ or s many 
 jointed/ to the whole family." 
 
170 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " I thought buckwheat was a kind of corn," said 
 Henry ; " for it is used to feed pheasants." 
 
 " The seeds produce a wholesome meal," replied 
 his father, " and you have tasted it in the form of 
 ' crumpets,' which are chiefly made of it ; but it 
 is very different in growth from corn plants, which 
 you know are grasses. Many of our commonest 
 and most despised weeds bear close relationship to 
 valuable plants ; it is so with GOOSEFOOT, which is 
 of the same tribe with spinach, beet, and mangold- 
 wurzel." 
 
 There was a smile among the children when 
 " goosefoot " was mentioned ; for they remembered 
 the trick Henry once played on his little brother. 
 by getting him to gather a sprig of stinking goose- 
 foot,* to examine the grayish-green, mealy-looking 
 leaves, and calyx, there being no petals to these 
 plants. 
 
 " Robert did not look at it long," said Mary ; 
 " but was glad enough to fling it into the sea ; 
 for it was in a field close by, that we found it." 
 
 " The worst of it was," said Eobert, " that after 
 I had washed my hands several times, I could smell 
 the goosefoot still." 
 
 * Chenopodium olidum. 
 
THE GOOSEFOOT TRIBE. 171 
 
 " I think that must have been your fancy," said 
 his father : " but it certainly is one of the most 
 detestable odours in vegetable nature ; and I can- 
 not wonder at your hatred of it. Some of the 
 species, common in our own fields and waste 
 ground, have an unpleasant scent; but it is not 
 to be compared to that of this sea-side species, 
 which most resembles putrid fish." 
 
 Mary wondered what could be the use of such 
 disagreeable weeds ; and her father told her that 
 stinking goosefoot is spoken highly of as a remedy 
 for spasmodic complaints. Eobert said he thought 
 it would stop his breath entirely to be obliged to 
 swallow such a dreadful medicine ; but he was 
 assured that when the body is racked with violent 
 pain, people never inquire whether the medicine 
 is nauseous or otherwise, but gladly and thankfully 
 receive whatever is likely, by the blessing of God, 
 to afford them relief. 
 
 His father here passed by some foreign tribes of 
 plants, with the mere mention of the useful pepper 
 plants, on the one hand, and the ornamental ine- 
 sembryanthemums, on the other; "But not far 
 from these," he said, " come a number of hand- 
 some shrubs, contained in the MEZEREUM and 
 
172 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 LAUREL tribes ; and, in the latter, many valuable 
 species bearing camphor, or yielding spices ; for 
 instance, cinnamon and cassia." 
 
 Mary remembered that a fine piece of lace 
 bark in the cabinet was described as being the 
 inner-bark of a tree * of the Mezereum tribe ; but 
 she was very sorry to hear that this beautiful sub- 
 stance was formerly twisted and knotted into whips 
 for the slave-drivers. 
 
 Her father remarked, that the next tribe to be 
 noticed was so important, that it required their 
 best attention, containing, as it did, the great host 
 of LEGUMINOUS plants. 
 
 " And what are they ? and why have they such 
 a hard name ?" asked Mary. 
 
 " Their name is given on account of the form of 
 the seed-vessel, which is universally a legume ; and 
 if you are still at a loss to know what I mean by 
 that term, you must think of the pod of a pea or 
 bean, for they are both legumes." 
 
 " And they both have the same shaped flower," 
 said Mary, " for last summer mamma told me to 
 find as many different blossoms as I could of a 
 particular shape, which she called butterfly-shaped ; 
 
 * Lay<>Ma lintearia. 
 
LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. 
 
 173 
 
 COMMON SAINT-FOIN. 
 
174 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 and I remember sweet-peas, and field-peas, and 
 beans, and vetches, and clover, and laburnum, and 
 a great many more, had all the same kind of 
 blossom. 
 
 "True," said her father; "and this with the 
 pod will be sufficient to mark most of the legu- 
 minous plants you are likely to meet with. But 
 there are others of this vast tribe that have indeed 
 the same pod, but a very differently shaped flower. 
 Thus, the mimosas in the conservatory, whose 
 blossoms seem little more than a bundle of delicate 
 yellow stamens, are members of this tribe, as are 
 all the beautiful acacias, their relatives, which 
 yield various gums, tanners' bark, and dark-coloured 
 wood for furniture. The rosewood of commerce 
 is .the timber of a mimosa of the forests of Brazil, 
 which when fresh has a faint smell of roses. 
 
 " I have thought of two more plants that have 
 blossoms and pods like the pea," said Eobert ; 
 " and they both grow on our down, and they are 
 both yellow." 
 
 Henry guessed immediately what they were ; 
 namely, the furze and the broom;* and Mary 
 thought of many of her favourite wild flowers with 
 
 * Cytisus scoparius. 
 
LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. 
 
 175 
 
 the same kind of blossom, saying, " I shall always 
 know a leguminous plant if it has that kind of 
 Hower." 
 
 COMMON FURZE. 
 
 " Several fruits, such as the tamarind, and 
 various gums, drugs, dyes, and balsams, are ob- 
 
176 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 tained from foreign plants of this tribe," said her 
 father ; " such as gums Arabic and Senegal, the 
 drug senna, the valuable indigo, &c. ; while in the 
 South American forests there are pod-bearing 
 trees of enormous size and extreme age. They 
 are called locust-trees, and almost incredible 
 stories are told concerning them. Fifteen Indians, 
 it is said, with outstretched arms, can scarcely 
 embrace one of the trunks ; and when the con- 
 centric rings of one of these giants were counted, 
 they led to the conclusion that the tree was more 
 than two thousand years old ; that is, that it dates 
 earlier than the time of our Saviour." 
 
 " What wonderful trees !" said Henry. " We 
 can scarcely fancy such giants to be related to our 
 peas and beans." 
 
 " Leguminous plants are found in almost every 
 part of the habitable globe ; except in two small 
 islands, which I will show you on the map." 
 
 Henry quickly brought a map of the globe ; 
 and his father pointed out St. Helena, and Tristan 
 d'Acunha, both in the South Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 " Then poor Napoleon could not have had any 
 fruit or vegetables of that kind!" said Henry. 
 " I dare say peas and beans would not have grown 
 
QUALITIES OF LEGUMINOUS PLANTS. 177 
 
 there, or anywhere else within the tropics ; 
 but tamarinds might, and other fruits and bal- 
 sams." 
 
 " The fragrant resin called Lign-aloes is ob- 
 tained from a plant of this tribe," said his father ; 
 " and so are the balsam of Tolu, used in lozenges, 
 and the balsam of Peru, which gives a peculiar 
 fragrance to pastiles. The Tonga bean, also, is a 
 fragrant seed used by perfumers and makers of 
 snuff. I have thus told you a few of the uses of 
 leguminous plants ; but, notwithstanding their 
 value to us, many of them are injurious in their 
 properties : the seeds of the laburnum are poison- 
 ous, so is indigo, and the bark of several foreign 
 trees. In the plants we commonly use, or give 
 to our cattle, the hurtful qualities are almost en- 
 tirely absent ; but there are some, even of these, 
 which must not be used too freely, or they become 
 unwholesome. The next tribe also has this con- 
 trariety, of yielding agreeable fruits whilst its 
 general principle is poisonous ; far more so, in- 
 deed, than that of leguminous plants." 
 
 " Is it a tribe that we know anything about ?" 
 asked Eobert. 
 
 " Yes ; and which you enjoy as much as any 
 4. N 
 
178 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 one. It is the ALMOND tribe, and contains cherries, 
 peaches, nectarines, plums, and almonds." 
 
 BLOSSOM OF THE SLOK OR BLACKTHORN. (PrUUUS 
 
 " But none of these delicious fruits are poisonous 
 
 are they, papa ?" 
 
 " The leaves and kernels yield an abundance of 
 
ALMOND AND APPLE TRIBES. 179 
 
 prussic acid, which is a deadly poison; and the 
 fruit, too freely indulged in, brings on dangerous 
 complaints ; so that the plum season is frequently 
 a time of sickness. Perhaps the most wholesome 
 of these fruits is the peach, and it certainly is the 
 most delicious. Our common laurel,* notwith- 
 standing its name, which would naturally lead you 
 to suppose it a member of the Laurel tribe, belongs 
 to the Almond "tribe, and partakes strongly of its 
 poisonous qualities. This tribe, and several which 
 follow, are nearly related to the EOSE tribe, as 
 you might guess by the blossoms, which much re- 
 semble, on a smaller scale, those of the wild rose. 
 The APPLE tribe has a similar likeness and relation- 
 ship ; and how beautiful are its clusters of rose-like 
 blossoms at this season !" 
 
 " Yes," said Mary, looking towards the orchard ; 
 "the trees are quite white with blossom, and are 
 prettier than anything we have in the garden yet." 
 
 " This useful tribe contains the apple, pear, 
 quince, medlar, service, mountain-ash, hawthorn, 
 &c., all the species being trees or bushes of the 
 northern hemisphere only. Another small tribe 
 (of which the common burnet,f and the lady's 
 
 * Cerasus laurocerasus* f Sanguisorba offlcindlis. 
 
180 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 mantle,* -are members) comes between this and 
 the true roses. There is a foreign plantt of this 
 
 FRUIT OF THE HAWTHORN. (Crategus oxycanth.) 
 
 BURNET tribe, the leaves of which are said to be 
 an excellent substitute for tea. In Tasmania it is 
 a troublesome weed, well known for the annoyance 
 caused by its fruit hooking into the dress of pedes- 
 trians. To keep this little tribe in your memory I 
 must show you a dried specimen of the field lady's 
 mantle, a humble plant, but very common, with 
 small greenish flowers almost concealed in the 
 
 Alchemilla vulgaris. 
 
 t Acsena sanquisorba. 
 
THE ROSE TRIBE. 181 
 
 leaves. But we now come to the more attractive 
 roses." 
 
 FIELD LADY'S MANTLE. 
 
 Henry thought the ROSE tribe must be more 
 beautiful than useful, for he had never heard of 
 anything made from it except rose-water, and 
 attar-of-roses, and conserve-of-roses : but he soon 
 found that the tribe is not confined to the mere 
 rose and sweet-briar, but includes the strawberry, 
 
182 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 raspberry, and blackberry, with the pretty poten- 
 tillas and geums of the garden and fields, the tall 
 agrimony, and the elegant meadow-sweet,* or 
 queen of the meadows, &c. 
 
 DOG-BQ8B. 
 
 "I am glad," said Mary, that the rose is our 
 
 Spiraea. 
 
THE ROSE TRIBE. 183 
 
 own English flower, it is such a sweet and beau- 
 tiful one." 
 
 "True; yet there are sad remembrances con- 
 nected with it ; for during the fatal struggles 
 between the Houses of York and Lancaster, which 
 filled our country with misery and bloodshed from 
 1450 to 1485, the white and red rose were taken 
 as badges by the rival parties." 
 
 " Oh, yes !" said Henry ; " York took the white 
 rose, and Lancaster the red ; and those terrible 
 civil wars were called the 'Wars of the Eoses.' 
 At last the red rose married the white ; for Henry 
 VII. was of the House of Lancaster, and he married 
 a daughter of the House of York, and so ended 
 the quarrel." 
 
 Mary had her scrap of poetry ready, as usual ; 
 and, as they drew near home, she sang this little 
 ditty to her brothers : 
 
 " The Rose is red, the Rose is white, 
 
 The Rose it blooms in summer's light ; 
 
 But ah ! it clouds the heart's delight, 
 
 To muse upon its history : 
 " It tells full many a woeful tale, 
 
 Of hearts made cold, of cheeks made pale, 
 
 Of love's sad sigh, the widow's wail, 
 In days of strife and chivalry. 
 
 Sweet Freedom, may the age prevail, 
 
 That strife no more may be 1" 
 
CONVERSATION X. 
 
 SAXIFRAGE HYDBANGE A LOOSE-STRIFE ELM BUCKTHORN 
 SPINDLE GENTIAN EBONY HOLLY NIGHTSHADE OLIVE 
 CONVOLVULUS DODDER TOBACCO THRIFT PLANTAIN PRIM- 
 ROSE JASMIN BOKAGE LABIATE VERBENA FiGWORT 
 BUTTERWORT CAMPANULA, AND SCABIOUS TRIBES. 
 
 HENEY had a tolerably large piece of garden- 
 ground, which he cultivated according to his own 
 fancy. The greater part was planted and sown 
 with vegetables; but he had a little flower-bed 
 separated from the rest by rock-work of his own 
 contrivance. Upon this rock-work he was now 
 busy planting some roots which required very 
 little soil, and were therefore likely to thrive 
 among the stones. One of these was the pretty 
 little plant called London Pride ; and when Henry 
 showed it to his father, he was told that it be- 
 longed to the SAXIFRAGE tribe, which consists of 
 humble plants, natives of cold mountain districts, 
 and springing up freely amongst the turf in such 
 situations. Most of them have white flowers, 
 dotted with yellow or green or red. "The little 
 
THE HYDKANGEAS. 
 
 185 
 
 plant in your hand," 
 said his father, " was 
 once very common in 
 the neighbourhood of 
 London ; hence its 
 name : but I have 
 heard it called ' Jeru- 
 salem stars, 7 and also 
 ' None-so-pretty.' You 
 will not expect to 
 hear that the showy 
 
 HYDRANGEAS of the 
 
 greenhouse are near 
 relations of the-e, and 
 form the next tribe." 
 
 Mary had heard her 
 mamma say that in 
 Japan a species of hy- 
 drangea is dried, and 
 used as tea, which is so 
 much admired by the 
 inhabitants, that they 
 give it a name which 
 means "tea of Hea- 
 ven." Her father said 
 
 PUKPLE LOOSE-STRIFE. 
 
186 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 that the purple LOOSE-STRIFE,* a handsome plant 
 which adorns the banks of rivers with its tall 
 spikes of blossom in July and August, stands in 
 a neighbouring tribe to the humble saxifrage: 
 which also contains the Egyptian henne plant, 
 used by women to stain their hands and feet of an 
 orange colour. 
 
 Near Henry's garden stood a large elm ; and 
 his father now plucked from it a little blossoming 
 spray, as a specimen of the ELM TRIBE, which con- 
 tains trees and shrubs of the northern hemisphere. 
 " Our common elm,"t he said, " is a handsome and 
 lofty tree, whose masses of foliage give a rich effect 
 to many an English landscape. The timber is less 
 valuable than that of the oak or beech, being 
 coarse-grained and comparatively soft; but it is 
 highly useful for many common purposes, and re- 
 sists moisture so well that it is especially fitted for 
 water-pipes under ground, or for any similar pur- 
 poses. These little flowers will soon be followed by 
 clusters of seed contained in winged seed-vessels, 
 not quite so large and conspicuous as those of the 
 sycamore, but so numerous as to rustle on the 
 branches like leaves, until the wind scatters them 
 
 * Lythrum salicaria. t Ulmus campestris. 
 
THE ELM TRIBE. 187 
 
 over the country, and sows a fresh crop of these 
 useful trees. The elm tribe is followed by the 
 
 SEED-VESSELS OF THB KIM. 
 
 BUCKTHORNS and spiNDLE-trees, the latter curious 
 for the pink-lobed seed-vessels with which one of 
 its species,* the only British one, adorns our hedges 
 in autumn. But I now lead you to several tribes 
 owning connection with those pretty little deep- 
 blue flowers, the GENTIANS." 
 
 * JEuonymus Europasus. 
 
188 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "Then I suppose they are all bitter plants," 
 said Eobert ; " for mamma says the gentians are 
 ^ very bitter, and that one of them* 
 
 is very much used by druggists 
 on that account." 
 
 "Most of their relatives are 
 also powerfully astringent and 
 bitter; but one tribe is chiefly 
 noted for producing hard black 
 timber called EBONY, others for 
 having intensely poisonous seeds, 
 as those produced by a tribe of 
 trees and shrubs, chiefly tropical, 
 called DOGBANES on account of 
 their poisonous qualities. To this 
 latter tribe belongs our pretty little 
 PERiwiNKLE,t which cheers us 
 when there are few other blossoms. 
 Neighbour to these also stands the 
 HOLLY tree,J which forms the only 
 species of its tribe native in Britain. 
 
 " Among the dangerous plants of this Gentian 
 alliance, the most fatal perhaps is the notorious 
 Indian tree, Strychnos Nux Vomica, which bears a 
 
 * Gentiana lutea. f Vinca. J Hex aquifolium. 
 
 LEAST GENTIAN. 
 
 (Exacumfdiforme.') 
 
THE BROOM-RAPE TRIBE. 189 
 
 handsome orange- coloured fruit, the size of a small 
 apple, the pulp of which is eaten by birds without 
 any ill effect. This fruit, however, encloses seeds 
 which are extremely poisonous, and which furnishes 
 the drug nux vomica of our shops." 
 
 "But I have heard of people taking it as a 
 medicine/' said Mary. 
 
 "In small doses, and under medical advice, it 
 may be safely taken; but in large doses, it pro- 
 duces frightful convulsions, and death. You will 
 perhaps be surprised to hear that near these venom- 
 ous plants, come the BROOM-RAPES, those extraor- 
 dinary brown parasites * that grow on the roots 01 
 hemp, clover, and other plants; but they also 
 possess a bitter principle similar to that already 
 described." 
 
 "I remember," said Henry, "what hard work I 
 had to dig up a plant of broom-rape which was 
 very deep in the ground, and had taken fast hold 
 of the roots of the clover ; it looked a poor de- 
 caying thing, but I found it very tough and 
 leathery." 
 
 "The poisonous nature of some of these tribes 
 will prepare you for another group, possessing also 
 
 * Orobanche. 
 
190 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 COMMON NIGHTSHADE. LKSSER DODDER. 
 
THE POTATO TRIBE. 191 
 
 dangerous qualities ; and you will here again ob- 
 serve that some of our cultivated vegetables are 
 obtained from very suspicious orders. The group 
 I speak of contains the NIGHTSHADE tribe, and the 
 OLIVE, CONVOLVULUS, and DODDER tribes, the last 
 being, as you know, curious parasites on various 
 plants, such as that which infests the furze and 
 heath on our downs." 
 
 "Nightshades are dreadfully poisonous," said 
 Mary; "and there is a very sad tale in my 
 Poetical Companion, of a poor little brother and 
 sister who died from eating the berries of the 
 deadly nightshade." 
 
 "The Nightshade tribe contains also the hen- 
 bane, which is a very poisonous weed at the time 
 the seeds are forming, though comparatively harm- 
 less at other times ; also the pretty petunias, the 
 tobacco plant, and the common potato." 
 
 There was a general exclamation of surprise 
 among the children, when they heard that the 
 potato belonged to this poisonous tribe. 
 
 " And yet," said Robert, " I remember mamma 
 told me not to chew the berries when I was 
 gathering the pretty blossom of the potato." 
 
 " The leaves and berries of the potato are nar- 
 
192 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 cotic, while tlie underground part of the plant is 
 perfectly wholesome. Even the fruit and seeds in 
 some plants of this tribe are eatable ; for instance, 
 the tomato, or love-apple, and the different kinds 
 of capsicum, the ground seeds of which are the 
 chief ingredient in cayenne pepper." 
 
 " Tobacco cannot be unwholesome," said Henry, 
 " for some of the healthiest old people in the vil- 
 lage are smokers." 
 
 "Moderately used, it does not appear to be 
 injurious : but when taken in excess, it is liable 
 to bring on paralysis. Oil of tobacco is a very 
 powerful poison ; and even the minute quantity 
 inhaled in smoking causes nausea in persons 
 unaccustomed to the use of it. The tobacco plant 
 is, as you know, a very handsome one ; and when 
 cultivated over a large extent of ground, it has 
 a most striking appearance. 
 
 " But we must not pass over the OLIVE TRIBE 
 with the mere mention of its name, for it contains 
 several of our especial garden favourites, in addi- 
 tion to the important species* which gives the 
 name to the tribe, and which supplies the well- 
 known olive oil." 
 
 * Olea Europsea. 
 
THE OLIVE TiilBE. 
 
 193 
 
 4. 
 
 FItfWRH AND BERRY OP OOKMt)N PRIVKT. 
 
194 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " I am wondering what relations of the Olive we 
 can have in our garden/' said Henry. 
 
 " The shrubs which will soon be its chief glory ; 
 (for there is great promise of blossom on the 
 lilacs* this year) and the handsome ashf trees, 
 whose light and graceful foliage is so late in 
 coming out, and so pretty when it does appear; 
 and the useful little dark-green privet J, which 
 thickens our shrubberies, and is not unornamental 
 when covered with its clusters of small white 
 flowers. 
 
 " Of the CONVOLVULUS tribe I must just say that 
 the roots abound in acrid milky juice and in some 
 foreign species furnish jalap, and scammony." 
 
 Mary did not like to hear of her beautiful bind- 
 weeds, and handsome garden convolvulus being 
 related to jalap ; but her father informed her that 
 the Syrian plant which yields that drug is a beau- 
 tiful climber with long crimson flowers. 
 
 " The next group of orders also contains some 
 old favourites, such as the different kinds of THRIFT, 
 the PLANTAINS, more important to birds than to us, 
 and the FRIMROSES. The last-named tribe will be 
 
 * Syringa vulgaris. f Fraxinus excelsior. 
 
 + Ligustrum vulgare. 
 
THE THRIFT TRIBE. 195 
 
 the most interesting to you, for it includes the 
 
 SEA-LAVKNDKK* AND THRIFT.f 
 
 cowslip, oxlip, auricula, cyclamen, pimpernel, and 
 
 others. 
 
 * Statice spalhulaia. 
 
 t 8. arrneria. 
 
196 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " Then the little scarlet pimpernel is related to 
 the primrose," said Mary. "I am glad I know 
 its family connections, for I could not tell anything 
 about it, except that it is the ' poor man's weather 
 glass/ giving him warning by 
 shutting up its blossoms before 
 rain." 
 
 "The delicate bog pimpernel, 
 which mamma is trying to raise 
 in the greenhouse, must belong 
 to the same tribe," said Henry. 
 
 " Yes ; and the yellow pimper- 
 WEED nel, or wood loose-strife, and the 
 t minimus.^ beautiful water violet, or feather- 
 foil, and the tiny chaff-weed, all these, and many 
 foreign families, make up this pretty tribe, con- 
 sisting entirely of monopetalous flowers." 
 
 Eobert wished to know what that meant ; and 
 his father sent him to gather a primrose, and showed 
 him that, instead of having several separate flower- 
 leaves, or petals, all have grown together into one 
 petal, which can be pulled off in one, with the five 
 anthers growing to the inside of its tube. Hence 
 the flower is called monopetalous, or with one 
 petal : if it had several, it would be called poly- 
 
MOXOFETALOUS FLOWERS. 
 
 197 
 
 petaloiw, or with many petals. The Jasmine and 
 the Borage tribes are monopetalous, the beautiful 
 
 starry flowers of the former being too apt to prove 
 their monopetalous character by dropping off 
 
198 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 entire as we gather them, while those of the latter 
 are mostly bell-shaped or funnel-shaped, as in the 
 common comfrey, whose clusters of white or 
 purple bells, and large rough leaves, are so frequent 
 in ditches. 
 
 "I know it well," said Henry, "for Mary has 
 sent me into many a ditch to gather it. Viper's 
 bugloss has leaves still rougher and more prickly, 
 and pretty bell-shaped flowers, and I remember 
 mamma said it was related to comfrey. Both these 
 plants have just the same trick as the jessamine of 
 dropping their blossoms unexpectedly." 
 
 " True ; and so have gromwell, alkanet, hound's- 
 tongue, borage, and the various kinds of scorpion- 
 grass, one of which is the true ' forget-me-not.' " 
 
 Mary inquired why that beautiful and innocent 
 flower is called scorpion-grass ; and she found that 
 the shape of the flowering stem, which curls round 
 at the top like a scorpion's tail, has given it the 
 name, in the same way that the soft and downy 
 leaves of most of the plants of the same family 
 have given the title of Myosotis, or mouse-ear. 
 
 But her father now began to speak of a tribe 
 which is very easy to be known, because all its 
 flowers are LABIATE or lipped (that is, the two 
 
THE VERBENA TRIBE. 199 
 
 parts of the corolla are like lips, either closed or 
 gaping), and grow in whorls or rings round the 
 stem at regular distances. 
 
 " That is how nearly all the plants look in the 
 herb-garden," said Eobert; "so I suppose mint, 
 and thyme, and marjoram, and sage belong to it" 
 
 " If sage does, then the salvias must also," said 
 Mary ; " for mamma says that salvia means sage, 
 and that the beautiful red and purple salvias are 
 near relations of common sage." 
 
 Henry recollected many other examples of these 
 lipped flowers, such as lavender, penny-roya], 
 horehound, rosemary, and ground-ivy. 
 
 After remarking that the chief value of the 
 tribe arises from its aromatic qualities, making it 
 useful for culinary purposes, his father went on to 
 speak of the VERBENA tribe, which is of little im- 
 portance except as furnishing the valuable timber 
 called teak, which is the produce of an enormous 
 tree * growing in the mountain-forests of Malabar 
 and other parts of the East Indies. 
 
 The children were surprised to hear of such a 
 tree among the verbenas, having only seen small 
 herbs of that name. 
 
 * Tectona grandis. 
 
200 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 "When you were speaking of lipped flowers, 
 papa," said Kobert, " how was it you did not men- 
 tion the snapdragon ?" 
 
 MTHITB HORKHOUND. (Jfarrubium ru^gare.} 
 
 Because that belongs to a different tribe, 
 
THE BUTTERWORT TRIBE. 201 
 
 whose properties are dangerous instead of whole- 
 some ; and even the blossom, which may seem to 
 you at first sight to be shaped like that of salvia, 
 is really very different, having in some cases a long 
 spur at the back, arid not growing in whorls, be- 
 sides other less conspicuous botanical differences. 
 The snapdragon belongs to the FIGWORT tribe, 
 which contains also the curious calceolaria or 
 slipper-flower, the mimulus, fox-glove, mullein, 
 and others, not forgetting the figwort itself, a 
 plant of ill odour, which you have found in the 
 woods, with dull greenish flowers in a cluster, 
 purplish at the lip. Near to these plants there is 
 a small tribe called BUTTERWORTS, which perhaps I 
 should have passed over, except for a curious use 
 to which the common butterwort is put in Lapland, 
 and which has been described by Linnaeus." 
 
 The children wished to know what that use was, 
 and they were told that the fresh leaves of the 
 plant are laid on a sieve, and a quantity of milk, 
 warm from the cow, is poured over them, and 
 allowed to stand a day or two, when it becomes 
 solid and compact, and most delicious to the taste. 
 The plant, it is stated, prevents the formation of 
 cream or whey, but renders the whole of the milk 
 
202 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 yOX-GLOVE. 
 
 PALE BUTTEKWORT. 
 
 (Pinguicula lusitanica,) 
 
CAMPANULAa 203 
 
 rich and consistent. A small portion of this solid 
 milk acts in the same manner upon that which is 
 fresh. 
 
 " I hope butterwort grows in England, that we 
 may get some of this solid milk," said Mary. 
 
 " The plant grows in the northern counties, and 
 also in Scotland," said her father; "but I have 
 never heard of any attempt to put it to the use 
 described by Linnaeus. But we now arrive at the 
 bell-flowers, a tribe that I know will please you, 
 containing, as it does, the little harebell of the 
 downs, and the various CAMPANULAS of the gardens, 
 blue and white." 
 
 " I like them very much," said Mary ; " but I 
 cannot take so much pleasure in them since I have 
 heard that they are poisonous." 
 
 " You need not be disturbed on that account," 
 said her father; "for although their juices are 
 certainly acrid, yet the root and the young shoots 
 of many species are occasionally used as food, 
 especially those of the rampion bell-flower.* But 
 I must not pause at these plants, nor at the lobe- 
 lias, which are more acrid still, nor at the valerians, 
 the roots of which have such an odd effect in 
 
 * Campanula Rapunculus. 
 
204 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 bringing on a kind of intoxication in cats ; a few 
 words on the SCABIOUS tribe must close our present 
 conversation." 
 
 The large purple flower-heads of the field 
 scabious had sometimes tempted the children a 
 few steps among the standing corn ; and they also 
 knew the devil's-bit scabious, which they had dug 
 tip in the meadows on purpose to see the root. 
 
 FULLERS' TEASEL, (tiipsacusfullonum.) 
 
 which is black, and ends abruptly, so that old 
 stories say the devil, envious of its good qualities, 
 
THE SCABIOUS TRIBE. 205 
 
 has bitten it off, that it may not flourish. They 
 were therefore pleased to hear that the scabious 
 tribe is a very important one, on account of the 
 teasel family, which belongs to it. 
 
 " The teasel is that handsome plant with a large 
 prickly head of lilac flowers," said Henry. "Its 
 large leaves have very sharp thorns at the back, 
 and they meet together round the stem, so as to 
 hold a great deal of water." 
 
 "Another kind of teasel/' said his father, 
 "largely cultivated in the clothing districts, sup- 
 plies the prickly heads so much used in the cloth 
 manufacture. When you accompany me to some 
 cloth mills, you will be amused to see the numbers 
 of teasel-heads fixed in frames, for the purpose of 
 raising the nap on cloth. Delicate kinds of ma- 
 chinery have been tried for this purpose, but 
 nothing is found to succeed but the teasel, so that 
 it is of high importance to our manufacturers." 
 
CONVEESATION XL 
 
 COMPOSITE EVENING PRIMROSE MYRTLE CACTUS CURRANT 
 
 8YRINGA CRANBERRY COFFEE HONEYSUCKLE, AND GALIUM 
 
 TRIBES. 
 
 "I WISH we could get rid of these troublesome 
 daisies on the lawn," said Robert ; " they are quite 
 thick again, and yet the gardener thought he had 
 rooted them all out." 
 
 Mary could hardly bear to have a daisy found 
 fault with, wherever it might show its face, for it 
 was the first flower she could remember gathering ; 
 and she still loved to watch its crimson-tipped 
 blossom closing up at sunset and opening wide in 
 the morning, earning its title to be called the day's 
 eye. Her father told her to examine a daisy,* as 
 an example of a very extensive tribe, called COM- 
 POSITE FLOWERS, all of them approaching more or 
 less to a starry shape, and many of them called 
 asters on that account. 
 
 The children had been picking daisies to pieces 
 while their father spoke; and Henry said he 
 
 * Bellis per&nnis. 
 
COMPOSITE FLOWERS. 
 
 207 
 
 thought he had found out why such flowers are 
 called composite, for instead of being one blossom, 
 the daisy is made up of a great many little blos- 
 soms, all huddled together. 
 
 "1 never noticed before, " he said, "that the 
 middle of the daisy is nothing but a mass of these 
 tiny flowers, and each seems to have its own sta- 
 
208 FIRST STEPS IX GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 in ens and pistil. But I suppose these rays spread- 
 ing round the edge are only petals." 
 
 "Look at them well, and you will see that 
 they also are florets, each having its own pistil, 
 but no stamens, while the centre florets have 
 each five stamens, as well as a pistil. These 
 outer florets, you see, are strap-shaped, the 
 inner, tubular; and a number of composite 
 flowers are made closely on this pattern, as the 
 yellow corn-marigold, the white ox-eye, the com- 
 mon yarrow, camomile, golden- 
 rod, colt's-foot, and others. But 
 if you gather one of the dan- 
 delions* in the orchard, you 
 will find that it does not agree 
 with this pattern, although it 
 is a composite flower." 
 
 Mary ran and gathered it, 
 and she soon saw that all its 
 florets are strap-shaped ; and 
 her father told her, that when 
 
 ^^ meet with ft thigfle 
 
 in blossom, or its near relation, the burdock, she 
 would find just the reverse to be the case, for all 
 
 * Jjeonfoclon taraxacum. 
 
COMPOSITE FLOWERS. 209 
 
 the florets in those plants are tubular, and there is 
 no ray at all. 
 
 Kobert remembered a number of garden flowers 
 which must belong to this composite tribe, such as 
 chrysanthemums, china-asters, dahlias, marigolds, 
 Michaelmas daisies, hawkweeds, &c. ; and Mary 
 found out that a piece of groundsel, which she had 
 gathered for her bird, also belonged to it. 
 
 " Now I understand," she said, " how it is that 
 dandelion and groundsel have such a quantity of 
 seeds. Every little floret, I dare say, has its own 
 seed ; and when they are all ripe, and have got 
 their silky wings ready, then they spread out into 
 those pretty globes, and are ready to fly away with 
 the least puff of wind. Yes, and that must be the 
 plan with the globe-thistle, and all the rest of the 
 thistles. No wonder they are called composite, if 
 that means many together." 
 
 " Yes," replied her father, " and not only many 
 together, but that cannot do without each other. 
 These florets, some without stamens and some with 
 stamens, are necessary to each other in a different 
 way from ordinary clusters of flowers, each of which 
 may be perfect in itself." 
 
 "How is it," said Henry, "that some of our 
 4. P 
 
210 FIKST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
COMPOSITE FLOWERS. 
 
 garden flowers have no seeds at all, although they 
 are of this kind ?" 
 
 " Because by the gardener's art the flower has 
 been rendered double ; that is, those parts which 
 were once stamens have been transformed into 
 petals, and petals without stamens cannot produce 
 seed. Several of the composites are very hand- 
 some and ornamental ; but there are others which 
 are simply useful, as artichokes, succory, endive, 
 lettuce, camomile, and wormwood.* Your fa- 
 vourite and sweet-scented southernwood is also 
 one of this tribe. 
 
 "Passing by some foreign and little known 
 plants, I must here mention the EVENING PRIMROSE 
 and the MYRTLE tribes. The evening primrose, ( 
 whose tall spikes of pale-yellow blossoms enliven 
 the shady parts of our gardens, gives its name to 
 a tribe which includes the pretty (Enothera, with 
 its wild relations the Willow-herbs, and also the 
 Clarkia, the Fuschia, and others. To the same 
 tribe belong two species of plants called En- 
 chanter's Nightshade,J one of which is often a 
 troublesome weed in gardens." 
 
 * Artemisia absinthium. f (Enothera biennis, I Circsea. 
 
212 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 EVENING PEIMK08R. 
 
THE MYRTLE TRIBE. 213 
 
 " Then I suppose this is a tribe of poisonous 
 plants," said Kobert. 
 
 " Not so : the roots of several are eaten, and 
 the fruit of some of the fuschias is tolerably 
 palatable ; a few have acrid and emetic properties, 
 but the Nightshades are comparatively harmless ; 
 their ill-repute chiefly arising from their bearing 
 the same name with the Deadly Nightshade, 
 which belongs to the same tribe as the potato. 
 The Myrtle tribe consists of plants having a fra- 
 grant and aromatic quality, very powerful in 
 cloves, which are the dried flower-buds of a plant 
 of the myrtle kind, and almost equally so in all- 
 spice, the dried fruit of another. To this tribe we 
 also owe the delicious preserve called guava jelly, 
 made from the pulpy fruit of the guava ; also 
 various valuable gums and aromatic oils. The 
 gum-trees of Australia are of this tribe, and they 
 are not a little remarkable." 
 
 " How so, papa ?" said Henry. 
 
 " From their peculiar growth ; for it appears 
 that they rise to the height of 100 or 150 feet 
 before they send out any branches, and are then 
 crowded with beautiful willow-like foliage. Grow- 
 ing near each other, they look like an assemblage of 
 
214 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 elegant columns ; and some of them, called stringy- 
 bark gum-trees, are said to rise nearly as high 
 as the Monument in London without branching." 
 
 " How I should like to see them !" said Henry ; 
 "but there would be no hope of climbing such 
 trees as those." 
 
 " I do not expect," said his father, " that any 
 of you will feel much interest in the tribes imme- 
 diately following these, for they contain plants 
 which you call ugly, notwithstanding their hand- 
 some flowers." 
 
 " Papa must mean the CACTUSES," said Mary, 
 "for we never liked them very much, they are 
 such odd, clumsy-looking plants. Where do they 
 come from ?" 
 
 "From America, where some are valued for a 
 refreshing and agreeable fruit, which has a similar 
 taste to our currants, and very much the same 
 properties. And although you have never seen any 
 other description of cactus than strange succulent 
 plants without leaves, yet there are some kinds 
 which bear leaves, and which when old become 
 woody in their stems. Humboldt even speaks of a 
 forest of such plants, grown to the stature of trees, 
 and yielding wood fit for domestic uses." 
 
THE CURRANT TRIBE. 215 
 
 " I shall not dislike them so much now I know 
 they are useful, and bear nice fruit," said Mary. 
 
 " I have just said that in their properties some 
 of these plants closely resemble currants ; there- 
 fore you will expect to hear that the CURRANT tribe 
 is not far off, however different its outward appear- 
 ance may be." 
 
 " Currants and gooseberries are of the same 
 family," said Henry. " Mamma says that they 
 never thrive except in cool countries like our 
 own, but that the English often try to make 
 them grow in hot countries, for the pleasure 
 of eating the fruits they had at home. Mamma 
 saw a number of little gooseberry and currant 
 trees planted close together, that they might be 
 put under air-tight glass cases, to be sent to the 
 West Indies, but she did not expect they would 
 live very long there. The pretty flowering cur- 
 rants, that bear such a quantity of pink blossoms, in 
 the shrubbery, are related to our favourite fruits." 
 
 " Plants of this tribe are very abundant in North 
 America," said his father ; " and they even occur 
 among the mountains of northern India, where the 
 climate is comparatively cool. Neighbouring tribes 
 are the SYRINGAS, and some curious tropical plants 
 
216 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 with fleshy fruit, which children are very fond of, 
 but which has the strange property of making 
 their complexions quite yellow." 
 
 " How very odd !" exclaimed Mary. " The 
 Children of that country must look as if they had 
 the jaundice. What is the name of the tree that 
 bears such strange fruit ?" 
 
 " Botanists call it G-ustava spedosa ; and they tell 
 us that the effect on the constitution ceases in one, 
 or at most two days, after which the children re- 
 gain their natural colour. The next tribe I shall 
 mention is the CRANBERRY tribe, containing cran- 
 berries, bilberries, and whortle-berries, (which are 
 all of one family,) besides many foreign sorts. 
 You are well acquainted with these fruits as pre- 
 serves, although you have only seen whortle-berries 
 growing. Not far from these comes the COFFEE 
 tribe, one of the largest we have, containing some 
 of the most important remedies known in medi- 
 cine, as cinchona, ipecacuanha, and others. But 
 these will scarcely interest you so much as coffee 
 itself, which is, as you know, a most important 
 plant, furnishing a wholesome beverage almost as 
 universal as tea." 
 
 Mary wished to know what sort of tree it was ; 
 
THE HONEYSUCKLE TRIBE. 217 
 
 and she was told that it is from eight to twelve 
 feet high, with slender drooping branches, bear- 
 ing evergreen leaves, like the bay, white starry 
 blossoms like the jessamine, and red fruit, like the 
 cherry. 
 
 "But the fruit," continued her father, "is 
 insipid, and would be little prized were it not that 
 each contains two hard oval seeds, enclosed in a 
 parchment-like membrane. These seeds are the 
 coffee-berries. But let us leave this tribe for one 
 that gives us the sweetest ornament of our rustic 
 porch." 
 
 "Oh, the honeysuckle!" said Mary. "It is 
 already showing some early buds; and next 
 month, I dare say it will be covered with blossoms, 
 as it was last year." 
 
 " The HONEYSUCKLE tribe is not only interesting 
 for its fragrance and beauty in these climbing 
 species, but for the elegance or the usefulness of 
 some that do not climb, such as the delicate little 
 northern plant called Linncea, in honour of the 
 great botanist, and the hardy and useful elder, 
 from which a great quantity of wine is made in 
 England, much of it employed, I fear, in the 
 adulteration of port wine. Some of the Viburnums 
 
218 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 or Gueldres roses, bear a fruit, the pulp of which 
 is made into cakes by the North American 
 Indians. 
 
 The children did not expect to hear that the 
 
ARRANGEMENT OF TRIBES. 219 
 
 gueldres rose was so near a relation to the honey- 
 suckle, for they thought its large white balls were 
 more like the blossom of the hydrangea than of 
 any other flower. And they were told that, in 
 fact, they do come so near hydrangeas, as to be 
 separated by what seem very small points of dif- 
 ference. I do not expect you," said their father, 
 " to understand the reasons why certain flowers are 
 placed in one tribe and not in another. There 
 are many tribes, indeed, where the family-likeness 
 is so strong, and where the known qualities of the 
 plants are so much alike, that you may feel tole- 
 rably certain as to their situation; but for the 
 greater number, you must simply depend on what 
 you are told about them. I have named the 
 different tribes, as nearly as possible, in the order 
 pursued by an eminent modern botanist ;* but 
 every tribe in its several families touches so many 
 other tribes, that we dare not say that in nature 
 they follow the exact order in which we place 
 them, just one after the other." 
 
 " No," said Henry ; " perhaps they go side by 
 side, three or four tribes together, instead of in a 
 single line." 
 
 " Or perhaps they go round in a ring," said 
 
 * LlNDLEY. 
 
220 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Mary, " and then all the rings get joined together 
 like the links of a chain." 
 
 " Very good ideas," said her father ; " and yon 
 may fancy, if yon please, when I have spoken of 
 a group of tribes connected with each other, that 
 they are friendly companies walking abreast, or 
 holding hands all round." 
 
 Mary was delighted with this notion, and began 
 to fancy the whole vegetable creation a succession 
 of flowery wreaths, linked together into an endless 
 chain, until she recollected that there are flower- 
 less plants as well as flowering ones. 
 
 " I see a flower in yonder hedge," said her 
 father, " which will illustrate our next tribe. It is 
 a slender, weak-looking plant, but covered with 
 tiny yellow blossoms." 
 
 Kobert ran to get it, and he knew at a distance 
 that it must be the plant his mamma called 
 GALIUM, or crosswort bed straw. " I know what 
 it is," said he, as he came running back, " and I 
 know what its relations are, for mamma told me 
 to look at its leaves, which grow round the stem 
 like a star ; and then she showed me some sweet 
 woodruff, and some cleavers, or goose-grass,* which 
 grow just the same." 
 
 * Galinm aparine* 
 
THE GALIUM TEIBE. 
 
 221 
 
 " Then you already know a very striking mark 
 of the whole tribe, in which these whorls of leaves 
 growing on square 
 stems are, I believe, 
 universal. The most 
 important plants in it 
 are the different kinds 
 of madder, which af- 
 ford a valuable dye; 
 nevertheless, I dare say 
 Mary places " sweet 
 wood-ruff ' ' foremost, 
 because it makes her 
 wardrobe smell like 
 new-mown hay. Do 
 you remember, Henry, 
 the old-fashioned way 
 of spelling wood-ruff?" 
 
 "Yes, papa, it is 
 this : Double u double 
 o double d e, R o double 
 u double / e, making 
 woodde - rowffe ; but 
 mamma says it was sometimes called wood-rowel, 
 because the leaves stand out round the stem like 
 the rowels of a SDUT." 
 
 GOOSE-GRASS. 
 
CONVERSATION XII. 
 
 UMBELLIFEROUS IVY CORNEL WITCH-HAZEL SANDALWOKT 
 LORANTH, AND BIRTHWORT TRIBES. 
 
 As the earlier spring flowers disappeared, the 
 fields, hedges, and ditches began to display great 
 numbers of what the children were taught to call 
 umbelliferous flowers. These had their small 
 blossoms arranged at the end of little rays, all 
 spreading out from the stem like the spokes of an 
 umbrella, forming what is called an umbel; and 
 they generally bore at the end of each principal 
 ray a number of smaller rays, making altogether 
 what is called a compound umbel. 
 
 As most of these plants come into blossom at the 
 same time, the children were desired to collect as 
 many different kinds as possible ; and when their 
 father examined them, he found wild carrot and 
 celery, and several species of parsnep and parsley, 
 besides archangel and hemlock. " Some of these 
 plants," he said, "in their cultivated state are 
 very useful to us as vegetables, but they are not 
 
UMBELLIFEROUS PLANTS. 223 
 
 safe otherwise. Celery, for instance, in its wild 
 state is poisonous, and even under cultivation only 
 that part is wholesome which has been blanched by 
 covering it from the light. I am not aware that 
 anything can be said against wild carrot and 
 parsnep ; but fatal accidents have arisen from 
 persons eating what they thought was the root of 
 one of these, but which really proved to be that 
 of the hemlock water drop- wort,* a highly-danger- 
 ous plant, having a yellowish juice in its root and 
 stems. Fools' parsleyf and common hemlockj 
 are also most dangerous plants ; a poor boy who 
 ate a small portion of the root of water hemlock 
 died in an hour and a half; and I am told that 
 it is sometimes fatal to cows, who eat of it when 
 they go down to rivulets to drink. Happily, it is 
 not a very common plant, or we should more fre- 
 quently hear of accidents from it." 
 
 The children did not get a very favourable idea 
 of umbelliferous plants from what their father 
 said ; but they remembered that there were some 
 pleasant exceptions in caraway, coriander, and a 
 few other plants which they had raised in their 
 
 * (Enantlie crocata. f JEthusa cynapium. 
 
 J Conium maculatum. Cicuta virosa. 
 
224 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 own gardens, by planting some of the seeds out of 
 their mamma's spice-box. 
 
 COMMON HEMLOCK. 
 
 " 1 can show you a plant which has its blossoms 
 in a simple umbel, and yet belongs to another 
 
THE IVY TRIBE. 
 
 225 
 
 tribe," said their father, pointing to the ivy on the 
 garden wall. " The IVY tribe is generally more 
 
 woody of growth, and more harmless in qualities 
 than its neighbour; many of the families are 
 tropical, and one of them produces the ginseng 
 root, so much prized by the Chinese for its warm 
 and pleasant flavour, but which you must not con- 
 found with ginger. In the ivy tribe is Mary's 
 4. Q 
 
226 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 TUBEROUS MOSCHATEL. 
 
THE DOGWOOD TRIBE. 
 
 227 
 
 ' dear little plant/ as she calls the little moscha- 
 tel,* with its humble growth, and curious little 
 
 cluster of yellowish-green flowers. Following the 
 ivy, come the COKNELS and the WITCH-HAZELS. The 
 
 * Adoxa Hoschdlatina. 
 
228 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 wild cornel* is the dog-wood, whose deep-red 
 branches, clusters of white flowers, and large 
 leaves turning red in autumn, make it so con- 
 spicuous a shrub in hedges. The bark of several 
 American species of this plant has a great reputa- 
 tion as a tonic, and is said to answer the purpose 
 of Peruvian bark in intermittent fevers. But these 
 tribes of small trees, or shrubs, must not detain 
 us, for I have now to dwell 
 for a few moments on 
 three tribes which resem- 
 ble each other in having 
 no petals, as well as in 
 other more important bo- 
 tanical particulars : they 
 are the SANDALWORTS 
 one producing the sandal- 
 wood of commerce; the 
 LORANTHS, a tribe of para- 
 sites, one of which is our 
 common mistletoe ; and 
 the BIRTHWORTS, curious 
 plants, of which you may 
 COMMON MISLETOK. fi n( j one specimen in the 
 
 * Cornus sanguined. 
 
ENDLESS CHAIN OF VEGETABLE LIFE. 229 
 
 common birth wort of our woods and thickets. 
 With these humble, and comparatively unimportant 
 tribes, I conclude my task, and release you from a 
 subject in which I must confess you have been more 
 interested than I could have hoped or expected." 
 
 " Dear papa," said Mary, " I am sure we are all 
 sorry, and not glad, to be released from the sub- 
 ject ; and I am very much disappointed that you 
 are come to the end so soon, for I thought we 
 should go on hearing of plants that were more and 
 more beautiful and curious, until we came to some- 
 thing quite grand and wonderful at last." 
 
 " Instead of which," said her father, " it is here 
 that the two extremities of the chain meet ; so that 
 at the very place where you expected the highest 
 and most perfect forms, there is, on the contrary, a 
 return towards the earliest and simplest. For in- 
 stance, the last tribe I have mentioned is one 
 which declines so much from the structure of an 
 exogen towards that of an endogen, that it seems 
 just fitted to occupy that point where we may 
 suppose the chain to return into itself, making up 
 the endless series of vegetable forms. And what- 
 ever arrangement we follow, the same thing must 
 to a great extent take place." 
 
230 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " If we are come to the place we set out from," 
 said Mary, " I really should like to begin again, 
 and go over all the tribes a second time." 
 
 "Try to do so amongst yourselves/' said her 
 father, " and when you are at a loss, apply to me. 
 I am most anxious you should all acquire the love 
 of plants, and the power to recognise them and to 
 tell their history, for I know it will be for your 
 good." 
 
 " It is very pleasant," said Kobert ; " but what 
 particular good will it do us ?" 
 
 " It will add new pleasures to your youth ; it 
 will be a great relief and recreation amidst the 
 cares of middle age ; and it will be a light and 
 pleasant employment for old age, if it should 
 please God to prolong your life." 
 
 " And then it will always make our walks amus- 
 ing," said Mary ; " for we shall never go out with- 
 out finding something to notice, or to carry home 
 for drying ; and when we go to a new place, how 
 pleasant it will be to find plants that we had never 
 seen before ! Do you remember, Henry, how de- 
 delighted we were when we first saw the horned 
 poppy on the shore, near Brighton ?" 
 
 "Yes," said her brother; "but I should have 
 
FEELINGS OF THE TRUE NATURALIST. 231 
 
 been much better pleased if the leaves had not 
 turned black in drying. But, papa," he continued, 
 " I do not understand how old people can take much 
 pleasure in botany. They generally stay at home 
 a great deal, and do not often travel, so that they 
 cannot have much chance of finding new plants." 
 
 "I assure you," replied his father, "that old 
 people, and even sick people, if they have culti- 
 vated this taste in their youth, find it a great re- 
 source in the season of their infirmity. An in valid 
 lady once made a very beautiful collection of plants 
 while confined for a long period to her couch ; and 
 this she managed by sending a servant to collect 
 considerable quantities every day, from which she 
 selected those that were worth drying. A valued 
 friend of our own was cheered to her dying hour 
 by a remarkable love of flowers, in which I believe 
 she saw emblems of that pure and sinless state on 
 which, through the merits of her Redeemer, she 
 has now entered. And with respect to the aged, 
 nothing I can say will give you so good an idea of 
 the value of this sort of knowledge to them, as a 
 beautiful passage which I have read in Mr. Swain- 
 son's ' Discourse on the Study of Natural History.' 
 Speaking of the old age of a true naturalist that 
 
232 FIRST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 is, one who looks fro'm the created to the Creator, 
 he says, ' Although no longer fit for active exertion, 
 we can still fancy him contemplating his collec- 
 tions, the acquisitions of his youth and the study 
 of his manhood, with that complacency which we 
 feel towards an old companion. Every object in 
 his little museum has its own story ; the scenes and 
 incidents of youth are brought back to his recollec- 
 tion in all their freshness ; and the memory, dwell- 
 ing on these green spots in the desert of life, will 
 oftentimes be prevented from recalling others of a 
 less cheering nature. He looks abroad in the 
 spring of the year, and sees the face of nature re- 
 newed with the same beauty and freshness as when 
 he contemplated her in the spring of youth. That 
 season of his life has long passed away, but he 
 knows that he too will be renewed, that his 
 winter will be changed to an eternal spring ; and 
 with firm but humble confidence in the promises of 
 his God, he resigns the contemplation of his sublu- 
 nary works, in the sure and certain hope of seeing 
 those which are heavenly.' " 
 
PIEST STEPS IN GENERAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
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