Imatges de pàgina
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shaped corollas, which have the appearance of so many gay bells, or crowns. Its golden stigma is very appropriately described as

"The dazzling gem

That beams in fritillaria's diadem."

The tulip, another member of the Lily family, is especially noted for a sort of mania among the florists of the seventeenth century, who bought and sold single bulbs at prices amounting to five hundred pounds sterling and upward—in those days an immense sum. Although the taste for tulips has greatly declined since that period, the tulip is still considered by many as 66 the king of florist's flowers." How highly the poet Montgomery prized it may be gathered from the following lines:

7.

"Not one of Flora's brilliant race

A form more perfect can display:

Art could not feign more simple grace,

Nor nature take a line away.

Yet, rich as morn, of many a hue,

When flushing clouds through darkness strike,
The tulip's petals shine like dew,

All beautiful, but none alike."

8. Highest in the division of Endogens stands the Palm family, embracing the stately palm-trees of the tropics, and the palmettos of the Southern States. "The race of plants to which the name of Palms has been assigned," says Lindley, "is, no doubt, the most interesting in the vegetable kingdom, if we consider the majestic aspect of their towering stems, crowned by a still more gigantic foliage; the character of grandeur which they impress upon the landscape of the countries they inhabit; their immense value to mankind, as affording food, and raiment, and numerous objects of economical importance; or, finally, the prodigious development of those organs by which their race is to be propagated. A single spathe or flower-stem of the date palm contains about twelve thousand flowers, and another species has been computed to have six hundred thousand upon a single individual; while every bunch of the seje palm of the Orinoco bears eight thousand fruits."

9. The variety of forms which they exhibit is briefly but well described in the following language of the celebrated traveler Humboldt. "While some have trunks as slender as the graceful reed, or longer than the longest cable, others are three and even five feet thick; while some grow collected in groups, others singly dart their slender trunks into the air; while some have a low stem, others tower to the height of nearly two hundred feet; and while one part flourishes in the

[PALM FAMILY.-ENDOGENOUS or MONOCOTYLEDONOUS; Aglumaceous.]1

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1. Cor'ypha umbraculif'era, Great fan palm, or Tallipot palm, vi. 1, y., 100 f., JL, E. Indies. (The topmost leaves form immense fans, twenty feet long and fifteen wide.) 2. Sa'gus rum'phii, Rumphius's sago palm, xix. 6, g., 50 f., Jl.-Au., E. Indies. 3. Co'cus nucif'era, Cocoanut palm, xix. 6, g., Jl.-Au., 50 f., E. Indies. 4. Phoenix dactilif'era, Date palm, xx. 3, w. and g., 50 f., W. Asia. 5. Ela'is Guineen'sis, Guinea oil palm, xx. 6, w. and g., 30 f., Guinea. 6. Chama'rops hys'trix, Porcupine palm, xx. 2, w. and g., 10 f., Georgia.

low valleys of the tropics, or on the declivities of the lower mountains, another part consists of hardy mountaineers, bordering on the limits of perpetual snow."

10. The cocoanut palm, which grows abundantly in the East Indies, supplies nearly every want of the native inhabitants. Travelers have described the uses which the native of Ceylon makes of it. He builds his house of its trunk, and thatches the roof with its leaves. His children sleep in a rude hammock made of the husk of the fruit; his meal of rice and scraped cocoanut is boiled over a fire made of cocoanut shells and husks, and is eaten from a dish of plaited green leaves of the tree, with a spoon cut out of a cocoanut shell.

11. In his canoe, made of the trunk of the palm-tree, he carries a torch of dried palm leaves, and fishes with a net of cocoanut fibre. When thirsty he drinks the juice of the cocoanut, and when hungry eats its soft kernel. He makes a drink called arrack from the fermented juice, and dances to the music of cocoanut castanets. He anoints himself with cocoanut oil, and, when sick, gets his medicine from the tree

so useful to him in health. Over his couch in infancy, and over his grave, a bunch of cocoanut blossoms is hung to charm away evil spirits.

12. Branches of palm were anciently carried in token of victory, but more generally it was reserved for religious triumphs; and from this, as well as from the prominent place it

occupies in Holy Writ, we feel the epithet of "celestial palm," bestowed on it by Pope, not inapplicable. No wonder that the Arab loves the palm, which he converts to so many uses-of food, and drink, and raiment, and shelter and that he places it among the foremost objects of his affections.

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13. The palmetto, which grows in South Carolina, and farther south, is the only representative of the Palm family north of the Gulf of Mexico. It will be recollected that the fort on Sullivan's Island, so gallantly defended by Col-· onel Moultrie in 1776, was constructed of palmetto logs, and that, owing to the soft nature of the wood, the balls of the enemy had but little effect to injure it. The palmetto has been appropriately placed on the coat of arms of South Carolina.

Carolina Palmetto.

1 A-GLU-MA-CEOUS plants are such as have not the glumes or husks which characterize the grains and grasses.

LESSON XX.-SEDGES AND GRASSES.

1. SEDGES are grass-like herbs, growing in tufts, and never acquiring a shrubby condition. So nearly do they resemble grasses in appearance, that the one may be readily mistaken for the other by the inexperienced; but, unlike grasses, the stems of sedges are usually angular, never hollow, and not completely jointed; and, moreover, when the leaf-stalks of sedges surround the stem, they grow together by their edges

2

[ENDOGENOUS or MONOCOTYLEDONOUS; Glumaceous.]1

9

5

2.

1. schoenus mucronatus, Clustered bog-rush, iii. 1, (ap.), 1 f., A.-My., S. Europe. Scir pus lacus'tris, Tall club-rush, iii. 1, (ap.), 6 f., JL-Au., Britain. 3. Scir'pus trique'ter, Triangular club-rush, iii. 1, (ap.), 3 f., Au., Eng. 4. Cype'rus vege'tus, Smooth marshsedge, iii. 1, (ap.), 18 in., My.-Au., N. Am. 5. Phleum praten'se, Timothy grass, with portions of the flower magnified, iii. 2, (ap.), 2 f., J., N. Am. 6. Tricus'pis quinqué'fida, English red-top, iii. 2, (ap.), 2 f., Jn.-J., N. Am. 7. Po'a aquatica, Water meadow-grass, iii. 2, (ap.), 6 f., Jl., N. Am. and Britain. 8. Agros'tis vulgaris, American red-top, with the flower magnified, iii. 2, (ap.), 18 in., Jn., N. Am. 9. Bri'za me'dia, Common quakinggrass, iii. 2, (ap.), 18 in., Jn., Britain.

into a perfect sheath. The plants of this family are of little value as nutriment to man or beast; but they are found in all parts of the world, in marshes, ditches, running streams, in meadows and on heaths, in groves and forests, on the flowing sands of the sea-shore, on the tops of mountains, from the arctic to the antarctic circle, wherever flowering vegetation can exist.

2. That the Grasses occupy a very different position in the vegetable kingdom will at once be apparent when we remark that in this family are found such plants as rye, oats, barley, maize or Indian corn, rice, sugar-cane, bamboo, and reeds, as well as the ordinary grasses. Of about four thousand species, of which this numerous and valuable family consists, only a single one, the poisonous darnel, is known to be injurious to man. All the grasses are provided with true flowers, that is, with stamens and pistils, but there is little trace of the calyx and corolla. The general appearance of the common grasses is so well-known that we need not describe it; nor need we speak of their wide distribution, for every body knows

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that they "come creeping, creeping every where," as is prettily told in

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Here I come creeping, creeping every where;
When you're number'd with the dead

In your still and narrow bed,

In the happy spring I'll come

And deck your silent home

Creeping silently, creeping every where.

Here I come creeping, creeping every where;

My humble song of praise

Most joyfully I raise

To Him at whose command

I beautify the land,

Creeping, silently creeping every where.-SARAH ROBERTS.

7. Of the immense value of the cereals to mankind we need not attempt to form an estimate; for how could human life, in one half of the globe, be sustained without them? And as to the grasses proper, they are the principal food of the most valuable of the domestic animals. In the United States alone, the value of agricultural products belonging to this great family is estimated at not less than seven hundred millions of dollars annually! And what an amount of labor is bestowed upon their cultivation! What variety and extent of interests are dependent upon the seasonable rain, and the dew, and the sunshine, which our heavenly Father sends to bring them to perfection! And what anxieties are felt about those scourges from insects, and storms, and blight, and mildew, that occasionally injure, and threaten to destroy them!

8. Wheat, "golden wheat," of which there are reckoned. three hundred varieties, is supposed to have been, once, an unprofitable grass growing wild on the shores of the Mediterranean, and to have become, by cultivation, the most valuable of all vegetable products. It is now difficult to tell what are mere varieties and what are distinct species; certain it is, that though it thrives best when treated as a biennial-sown in autumn and harvested the following summer-yet winterwheat sown in spring will ripen the same year, though the produce of succeeding generations of spring-sown wheat is found to ripen better; white, red, and beardless wheat change

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