The Botanic Garden. Part II. | Page 5

exposing it to the light
and air. As soon as the seeds are formed, it erects all the flower-stalks
to prevent them from falling out; and thus loses the beauty of its figure.
Is this a mechanical effect, or does it indicate a vegetable storgé to
preserve its offspring? See note on Ilex, and Gloriosa.

In the Meadia, the Borago, Cyclamen, Solanum, and many others, the
filaments are very short compared with the slyle. Hence it became
necessary, 1st. to furnish the stamens with long anthers. 2d. To
lengthen and bend the peduncle or flower-slalk, that the flower might
hang downwards. 3d. To reflect the petals. 4th. To erect these
peduncles when the germ was fecundated. We may reason upon this by
observing, that all this apparatus might have been spared, if the
filaments alone had grown longer; and that thence in these flowers that
the filaments are the most unchangeable parts; and that thence their
comparative length, in respect to the style, would afford a most
permanent mark of their generic character.]
[Illustration: Meadia]
65 Woo'd with long care, CURCUMA cold and shy
Meets her fond husband with averted eye:
Four beardless youths the
obdurate beauty move
With soft attentions of Platonic love.
With vain desires the pensive ALCEA burns,
70 And, like sad
ELOISA, loves and mourns.
The freckled IRIS owns a fiercer flame,
And three unjealous
husbands wed the dame.
CUPRESSUS dark disdains his dusky bride,

One_ dome contains them, but _two beds divide.
75 The proud
OSYRIS flies his angry fair,
Two houses hold the fashionable pair.
[Curcuma. l. 65. Turmeric. One male and one female inhabit this
flower; but there are besides four imperfect males, or filaments without
anthers upon them, called by Linneus eunuchs. The flax of our country
has ten filaments, and but five of them are terminated with anthers; the
Portugal flax has ten perfect males, or stamens; the Verbena of our
country has four males; that of Sweden has but two; the genus Albuca,
the Bignonia Catalpa, Gratiola, and hemlock-leaved Geranium have
only half their filaments crowned with anthers. In like manner the

florets, which form the rays of the flowers of the order frustraneous
polygamy of the class syngenesia, or confederate males, as the
sun-flower, are furnished with a style only, and no stigma: and are
thence barren. There is also a style without a stigma in the whole order
dioecia gynandria; the male flowers of which are thence barren. The
Opulus is another plant, which contains some unprolific flowers. In like
manner some tribes of insects have males, females, and neuters among
them: as bees, wasps, ants.
There is a curious circumstance belonging to the class of insects which
have two wings, or diptera, analogous to the rudiments of stamens
above described; viz. two little knobs are found placed each on a stalk
or peduncle, generally under a little arched scale; which appear to be
rudiments of hinder wings; and are called by Linneus, halteres, or
poisers, a term of his introduction. A.T. Bladh. Amaen. Acad. V. 7.
Other animals have marks of having in a long process of time
undergone changes in some parts of their bodies, which may have been
effected to accommodate them to new ways of procuring their food.
The existence of teats on the breasts of male animals, and which are
generally replete with a thin kind of milk at their nativity, is a
wonderful instance of this kind. Perhaps all the productions of nature
are in their progress to greater perfection? an idea countenanced by the
modern discoveries and deductions concerning the progressive
formation of the solid parts of the terraqueous globe, and consonant to
the dignity of the Creator of all things.]
[Alcea, l. 69. Flore pleno. Double hollyhock. The double flowers, so
much admired by the florists, are termed by the botanist vegetable
monsters; in some of these the petals are multiplied three or four times,
but without excluding the stamens, hence they produce some seeds, as
Campanula and Stramoneum; but in others the petals become so
numerous as totally to exclude the stamens, or males; as Caltha, Peonia,
and Alcea; these produce no seeds, and are termed eunuchs. Philos.
Botan. No. 150.
These vegetable monsters are formed in many ways. 1st. By the
multiplication of the petals and the exclusion of the nectaries, as in

larkspur. 2d. By the multiplication of the nectaries and exclusion of the
petals; as in columbine. 3d. In some flowers growing in cymes, the
wheel-shape flowers in the margin are multiplied to the exclusion of
the bell-shape flowers in the centre; as in gelder-rose. 4th. By the
elongation of the florets in the centre. Instances of both these are found
in daisy and feverfew; for other kinds of vegetable monsters, see
Plantago.
The perianth is not changed in double flowers, hence the genus or
family