[CEREALS. ENDOGENOUS or MONOCOTYLEDONOUS; Glumaceous.]1

1. Triticum hyber'num, Winter wheat, iii. 2, (ap.), 4 f., Jn.-Jl., unknown. 2. Trit'-. icum compos'itum, Egyptian wheat, iii. 2, (ap.), 34 f., Jn.-J., Egypt. 3. Trit'icum spe'lta, Spelter wheat, iii. 2, (ap.), 3 f., Ja.-Jl., Egypt. 4. Seca'le cerea'le, Common rye, iii. 2, (ap.), 4 f., Jn.-J., Crimea. 5. Saccharum officina'rum, Sugar-cane, iii. 2, (ap.), 12 f., Au., India. 6. Ave'na fa'tua, Wild oat, iii. 2, (ap.), 4 f., Au., Britain. 7. Hor'deum vulga're, Spring barley, iii. 2, (ap.), 3 f., J., Sicily. 8, Mil'ium effu'sum, Common millet, iii. 2, (ap.), 4f., Jn.-J., Britain. 9. Triticum Polon'icum, Polish wheat, iii. 2, (ap.), 4f., Jn.-JL., Egypt.

and run into each other on different soils and in different climates; and even the Egyptian wheat is known to change to the single-spiked common plant.

9. The American reader will recollect that in Europe wheat is called corn, a term which we apply only to maize or Indian corn. The latter was found cultivated for food by the Indians of both North and South America on the first discovery of the continent, and from this circumstance it derived its popular name. It is still found growing, in a wild state, in the humid forests of Paraguay, where, instead of having each grain naked as is always the case after long cultivation, each is completely covered with glumes or husks. The varieties produced by cultivation are numerous.

10. Indian corn furnishes a fine example of those plants. which have staminate flowers on one part of the plant and pistillate on another. Thus the staminate flowers of the corn are those loose yellow branches which grow at the top of the stalk, while the pistillate, hidden among the lower leaves, are

only discovered by their long shining styles which hang from the ears in tufts like silken tassels. One peculiarity noticed in nearly all the members of the Grass family is the exceeding hardness of the outer covering of their stems, which is caused by a thin coating of flinty or silicious matter. The sharp edge of a blade of grass has often cut the flesh of curious or careless boys in the experiment of drawing it through their fingers.

11. Numerous and abundant, throughout all literature, are the tributes of praise with which poetry has striven to enshrine in our affections the valuable cereals we cultivate. The ancients, in their mythology, placed agriculture above all other pursuits, and called CERES, who was the fabled goddess of grain and harvests, the Great Goddess, and the Mighty Mother. Songs and festivals celebrated her benevolent gifts to man; and when we come down to later ages, we find that songs to the "Harvest Moon," and songs of "Harvest Home," have ever been the most popular of national melodies.

12.

Pleasing 'tis, O harvest-moon!
Now the night is at her noon,
'Neath thy sway to musing lie,
While around the zephyrs sigh,

Fanning soft the sun-tanned wheat,
Ripened by the summer's heat;
Picturing all the rustic's joy

When boundless plenty greets his eye,
And thinking soon,

O harvest-moon!

How many a gladsome eye will roam

Along the road,

To see the load,

The last dear load of harvest-home.-HENRY KIRKE WHITE.

As a suitable closing of this lesson we must extend it still farther, and give place to the following, which is both appropriate to the subject, and to be admired for the associations which it recalls.

13.

14.

15.

CORN-FIELDS.

(Corn is a term applied in Europe to all the cereals.)

When on the breath of autumn-breeze,

From pastures dry and brown,
Goes floating like an idle thought
The fair white thistle-down,

Oh then what joy to walk at will
Upon the golden harvest hill!
What joy in dreamy ease to lie
Amid a field new shorn,
And see all round, on sunlit slopes,
The piled-up stacks of corn;
And send the fancy wandering o'er
All pleasant harvest-fields of yore.
I feel the day-I see the field,
The quivering of the leaves,
And good old Jacob and his house
Binding the yellow sheaves;
And at this very hour I seem
To be with Joseph in his dream.

16.

17.

18.

I see the fields of Bethlehem,

And reapers many a one,
Bending unto their sickle's stroke-
And Boaz looking on;

And Ruth, the Moabite so fair,
Among the gleaners stooping there.
The sun-bathed quiet of the hills,
The fields of Galilee,

That eighteen hundred years ago
Were full of corn, I see;

And the dear Savior takes his way
'Mid ripe ears on the Sabbath-day.
Oh golden fields of bending corn,
How beautiful they seem!

The reaper-folk, the piled-up sheaves,

To me are like a dream.

The sunshine and the very air

Seem of old time, and take me there.-MARY HOWITT.

1 GLU-MA'-OEOUs plants are those which have glumes, like the husk or chaff of the grains and grasses.

LESSON XXI.—OF THE HIDDEN USES OF PLANTS.
THERE be in plants

Influences yet unthought, and virtues, and many inventions,

And uses above and around, which man hath not yet regarded.

Not long, to charm away disease, hath the crocus yielded up its bulb, Nor the willow lent its bark, nor the nightshade its vanquished poison; Not long hath the twisted leaf, the fragrant gift of China,

Nor that nutritious root, the boon of far Peru,

Nor the many-colored dahlia, nor the gorgeous flaunting cactus,

Nor the multitude of fruits and flowers ministered to life and luxury:
Even so, there be virtues yet unknown in the wasted foliage of the elm,
In the sun-dried harebell of the downs, and the hyacinth drinking in the
meadow,

In the sycamore's winged fruit, and the facet-cut cones of the cedar;
And the pansy and bright geranium live not alone for beauty,
Nor the waxen flower of the arbute, though it dieth in a day,
Nor the sculptured crest of the fir, unseen but by the stars;
And the meanest weed of the garden serveth unto many uses,

The salt tamarisk, and juicy flag, the freckled orchis, and the daisy.

The world may laugh at famine when forest trees yield bread,
When acorns give out fragrant drink, and the sap of the linden is as fatness:
For every green herb, from the lotus to the darnel,

Is rich with delicate aids to help incurious man.-M. F. TUPPER.

There is perhaps no pursuit which leads the mind more directly to an appreciation of that wisdom and goodness which pervade creation, than the study of the vegetable kingdom, in which infinite variety, beauty, and elegance, singularity of structure, the nicest adaptations, and the most preeminent utility, meet us at every step, and compel us to observe and learn, even when often the least disposed to inquiry or reflection.-CHAMBERS.

THIRD DIVISION.

CRYPTOGAMOUS PLANTS.

[Cryp-tog'-a-mous, or Flowerless Plants, are divided into two classes, Ac'-ro-gens and Thal'-lo-gens; the leading physiological peculiarities of which are,

1st. The stem of an Acrogens grows from the end, but does not increase in diameter. Acrogens have breathing pores, or stomata, in their skin or covering; their leaves and stem are distinctly separated; they produce no flowers, but multiply by reproductive spheroids or spores, somewhat analogous to seeds, but whose nature is not well known.

2d. Thallogens are mere masses of cells; they have no stomata or breathing pores, foliage, or flowers; and they multiply by the spontaneous formation in their interior, or upon their surface, of reproductive spheroids called spores.]

LES. XXII.—FERNS, LIVERWORTS, AND MOSSES. (ACROGENS.)

1. Polypo'dium vulga're, Common polyp'ody, or Wall fern, xxi. 1, brown, 1 f, My.-O. 2. Struthiop'teris Pennsylvanica, Ostrich fern, xxi. 1, br., 2 f., Au. 3. Pte'ris atropurpu'rea, Rock brake, xxi. 1, br., 10 in., Au.-S. 4. Aspid'ium Thelyp'teris, Lady fern, xxi. 1, 1 f., br., J.-Au. 5. Marchan'tia polymor'pha, Variable liverwort, xxi. 6, dark green, 2 in., moist rocks, winter. 6. Autho'ceros puncta'ta, Dotted liverwort, xxi. 6, spring, dark green, 1 in., damp places. 7. Sphagnum obtusifolium, Peat moss, xxi. 5, y. and g., bogs, 7 in. 8. Gymnos'tomum viridis'simum, Green moss, xxi. 5, bright green, trees and rocks, 1 in. 9. Grim'mia apocar'pa, Alpine moss, xxi. 5, dark olive, 11 in., dense tufts on rocks and trees. 10. Ortho' trichum cris'pum, Crisp mosa, xxi. 5, bright green, 1 in., trees. 11. Grim'mia pulvina'ta, Cushion moss, xxi. 5, bright green, tin., house-tops. 12. Bartra'mia Halleria'na, Mountain moss, xxi. 5, bright green, 6 in., mountains. 13. Hyp'num mura'le, Wall moss, xxi. 5, light green, 1 in., walls and stones.

1. WE come now to a very singular division of the vegetable world, embracing a vast multitude of plants which differ from those before described in having no flowers for the production of seed and fruit. They indeed bear no true seeds, but are propagated by innumerable small germs called spores,

ready to grow where they find a proper home, which is sometimes a piece of bread, or cheese, or decaying wood. Among these plants the highest in order are the ferns, which are more like flowering plants than any other family of the cryptogamia; yet even in them no true flower is ever seen; and what are sometimes called their seeds, and which are so minute as to present to the eye only an impalpable1 powder, are found gathered in brown spots or lines on the under surface of the fronds or leafy portions of the mature plant.

"'Tis there the fern displays its fluted wreath,

Beaded beneath with drops of richest brown."

2. Ferns thrive best in damp places, though they sometimes grow in pastures and on dry hill-sides. Thus it has been said of one of the beautiful plants of this family:

"Where the copsewood is the greenest,
Where the fountain glistens sheenest,2
Where the morning dew lies longest,
There the Lady Fern grows strongest."

The ferns growing in the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia are more than four feet in height; and in tropical countries the tree fern rises to the height of thirty or forty feet. One of the most interesting peculiarities of ferns is the spiral manner in which the leaflets are coiled up before their first appearance, each one being rolled in toward the rib that supports it a peculiarity which has been very prettily noticed in the following lines:

3.

4.

5.

6. It having been ascertained that ferns were propagated by seeds, although the flower, if there were any, was too minute to be detected even by the most powerful microscope, there was a mystery thrown over the plant, which naturally gave rise to many poetic fancies, one of which was the power of rendering invisible the person who was so fortunate as to possess the seed; and to this fancied property we find an allusion in Shakspeare:

"We have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible."

7. Scarcely any flowering plants have been greater favorites