LESSON THE SECOND.

CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS.

1. The Linnæan system of botany is founded on the number, situation, and proportion of the stamens and pistils, which are usually found in the same flower, as in the lily.

2. Sometimes the stamens and pistils are placed in a different individual of the same species: that furnished with statems is called the male, or barren blossom: that with pistils the female, or fertile one. Such is the datepalm. The male and female will both produce blossoms apart, but they must be near each other before fruit can be perfected.

3. When fertile and barren flowers are borne by the same plants, such plants are named monoecious, as residing in the same house: the cucumber is an example.

4. If the fertile and barrren flower, that is the male and female grow on different roots, as on the date-palm, they are dioecious.

5. The pistil is divided into three parts, the germen, the style, and the stigma; the germen, which contains the embryo seed, and the stigma, are essential, but the style is often wanting, as in the poppy.

6. The stamen is divided into two parts, the filament and anther: the latter is essential, as containing an apparently fine dust or powder, called pollen, which, by falling on the stigma of the pistil, is the cause of complete fructification.

7. The stamens and pistils being the essential parts of a plant, Linnæus made them the basis of his system, which consists of twenty-four classes. These classes owe their distinctions chiefly to the stamens: the orders, or subdivisions of the classes are generally marked by the number of pistils.

9. The first eleven classes depend entirely upon the number of stamens: thus class 1. " Monandria,” signifies one male, or one stamen. Class 2. "Diandria," two males, or two stamens, &c.

10. The twelfth class depends on the number (twenty or more) of stamens growing out of the calyx.

11. The thirteenth depends on the number growing out of the receptacle.

12. The fourteenth and fifteenth classes depend on the relations which the stamens bear among themselves: the first of these have four stamens, two long and two short, as in the thyme, and the second has four long and two short stamens, as in the stock. This last comprises the cruciform flowers.

13. The next three classes depend on the union of the stamens: in the sixteenth all the stamens are united in one sheath in the seventeenth they are divided into two quantities; and in the eighteenth into more than

two.

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14. The nineteenth has the upper parts of the stamens united into a tube, and the lower parts separate.

15. The twentieth has the stamens situated on the pistil.

16. The twenty-first comprehends plants where the stamens grow in separate flowers from those that produce the seed, yet both sorts of flowers growing on the same plant, as in the cucumber.

17. The twenty-second class includes those plants in which the flowers that bear the stamens grow on separate plants from those that bear the seed, as in the date-palm.

18. The twenty-third class comprehends those plants, the stamens of which grow sometimes on separate plants, sometimes in separate flowers in the same plant, and sometimes in the same flower with the pistil.

19. In the twenty-fourth class the stamens and pistils are either not well ascertained, or cannot be numbered with certainty: this is called the cryptogamia class, and includes ferns, mosses, liverworts, flags, and different kinds of sea-weeds and fungi.

QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION.

1. On what is the Linnæan system of botany founded?
2. Which are the male, and which the female blossoms?

3. What are monoecious plants?

4. What are dioecious plants?

5. How is the pistil divided?

6. How is the stamen divided?

7. What did Linnæus make the basis of his system, and of how

many classes does it consist?

8. Can you repeat the names of the classes?

9. On what do the first eleven classes depend?

10. On what does the twelfth class depend?

11. On what does the thirteenth depend?

12. On what do the fourteenth and fifteenth classes depend?

13. On what do the sixteenth seventeenth, and eighteenth de

pend?

14. How is the nineteenth class distinguished?

15. How are the stamens of the twentieth situated?

16. What plants does the twenty-first class comprehend? 17. What does the twenty-second class comprehend?

18. What does the twenty-third comprehend?

19. How is the twenty-fourth class distinguished?

LESSON THE THIRD.

OF THE ORDERS OF PLANTS.

1. The orders of the first thirteen classes are established upon the number of pistils, and they are designated by the Greek words monogynia, digynia, trigynia, &c. signifying one, two, three, &c. females.

ILLUSTRATION.-We have in the canna, or American reed,

an instance of the monandria monogynia, that is, a flower with one stamen and one pistil. In the jasmine we see an instance of the diandria monogynia, or flower that has two stamens and one pistil. In the linum, or flax, there are five stamens and five pistils: and the flower is called pentandria pentagynia, that is, one having five males and five females, and so of the

rest.

2. The orders of the fourteenth and fifteenth classes are characterized by the manner of producing seed; and those of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth, are founded on the number of stamens which compose them.

3. The orders of the nineteenth class are marked by the united or separated, barren or fertile nature of the florets.

4. The orders of the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second, are distinguished, almost entirely, by the number of their stamens.

5. The orders of the twenty-third are called monoecia, and dioecia, for reasons which have been given in the last lesson.

6. The four orders of the twenty-fourth class are ferns, mosses, flags, fungi, and liverworts.

7. The study of botany has been applied as a guide to estimate the qualities of plants.

ILLUSTRATION.-The first order of the fourteenth class, denominated" didynamia gymnospermia," are all innocent or wholesome: those of the other order are fetid, narcotic, and dangerous, being allied to a large part of the pentandria monogynia, known to be poisonous, as containing henbane, nightshade, and tobacco. The whole class tetradynamia is wholesome. Whenever the stamens are found to grow out of the calyx, they indicate the pulpy fruits of such plants to be wholesome. The papilionaceous plants are wholesome, except the seeds of the laburnum, which, if eaten unripe, are violently emetic and dangerous. Milky plants are generally to be suspected. Umbelliferous plants which grow in dry or elevated situations, are aromatic, safe, and often wholesome, while those that inhabit low and watery places are among the most deadly poisons.

QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION.

1. Upon what are the orders of plants established? Give the illustration.

2. How are the orders of the fourteenth and fifteenth classes characterized, and also those of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth?

3. How are the orders of the nineteenth class marked?

4. How are the orders of the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second distinguished?

5. What are the orders of the twenty-third class called?
6. What are the four orders of the twenty-fourth class?
7. To what has the study of botany been applied?
Can you give the illustration!

NATURAL HISTORY.

INTRODUCTION.

"See thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Nature's ethereal, human, angel, man;
Beast, bird, fish, insect, which no eye can see,
No glass can reach :-from Infinite to Thee,
From Thee to nothing."

Pope.

THE world may very properly be considered as one large mansion, where man is permitted to enjoy the works of nature, and to adore the Almighty hand which called it into life. Blest with talents, and endowed with sense, he feels himself the lord of earth's domain: but whilst he contemplates the superiority of his station, he is too prone to forget from whom that proud station and pre-eminence is derived.

Amidst the many advantages which the mind enjoys from tracing nature through her varying course, that of finding itself raised with admiration to the power which formed it, is one of the most beneficial that can be produced for it is impossible to behold its nice dependencies without observing an ALMIGHTY HAND.

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In taking a view of animated nature, and beholding the connexion which exists in every part, we cannot but observe the exact resemblance which subsists between the human and the animal race. If Providence has bestowed upon us the gift of intellect, they are endowed with sagacity or strength;