Descriptive botany, or, The art of describing plants correctly in scientific language : for self-instruction and the use of schools / by Professor Lindley.

  • John Lindley
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Descriptive botany, or, The art of describing plants correctly in scientific language : for self-instruction and the use of schools / by Professor Lindley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    FRAGARIA VIRGINIANA : The Garden Strawberry. Calycifloral Exogens. Nat. Order, Rosace.®, or Roseworts. Stem woody, perennial, subterranean, covered with brown scales, throwing out strong, perpendicular, yellowish, fibrous roots ; and long weak runners rooting at the joints. Leaves all radical, ternate, dark green, somewhat shining, very coarsely serrated; with strong parallel oblique veins, silky beneath; leaflets nearly sessile, roundish oblong, entire towards the base, shorter than the semiterete hairy petioles; stipules membranous, lanceolate, acuminate, half adnate. Scapes erect, terete, silky, branched from near the middle, and corymbosely panicled. Bracts herbaceous, oblong, close-pressed, bifid, the lowest often mono- phyllous, the uppermost acuminate, entire. Calyx herbaceous, flat: sepals, in two whorls of 5 each; the outer oblong, frequently bidentate, the inner triangular, acuminate, entire. Corolla polypetalous, white, larger than the calyx; petals 5, roundish, inserted upon the calyx between the inner sepals. Stamens indefinite, perigynous : filaments short, stiff; anthers oval, cordate, flat, dehiscing at the edges. Carpels indefinite, distinct, upon an oblong elevated torus; ovaries oblong, rather oblique ; ovules solitary, ascending; styles erect, filiform, yellowish; stigmas simple. Fruit a large succulent conical or hemispherical torus, having a persistent calyx at the base, and bearing on its surface the half immersed wrinkled achaenes. Seed solitary ascending; embryo exalbuminous, with plano-convex cotyledons, and a short inferior radicle. [Obs. This description applies to the common state of the Garden Strawberry, when nearest its original state ; hut its varieties are very numerous, differing not only in the form, colour, and quality of the fruit, hut in the form of the leaflets, their surface and colour, and in the degree of hairiness of all the parts.] CRATiEGUS OXYACANTHA : The Hawthorn tree. ' Calycifloral Exogens. Nat. Order, Rosace®, § Pome®. A small Tree, with a round entangled branching head; trunk with numerous irregular longitudinal fissures; branches dark grey, smooth, with numerous simple spines; twigs pale green, terete, smooth. Leaves alternate, deciduous, stalked, 3- to 5-lobed, with the lobes apiculate, often serrated and incised; smooth except a few silky hairs chiefly along the midrib on the underside ; petioles slender, channelled, rather shorter than the lamina; stipules free, leafy, acuminate, those of the first leaves falcate, coloured on the inner edge, the rest linear-lanceolate, glandular at the edgo, sometimes half-hastate at the base. Corymbs axillary and terminal, panicled, silky, with setaceous coloured deciduous bracts. Calyx superior, 5-lobed; the lobes triangular, refloxed; tho tube, obconical woolly. Petals 5, roundish, concave, inserted into the edge of the tubo of the calyx, imbricated in activation. Stamens indefinite (about 20) perigynous; filaments white, filiform, curving inwards; anthers 2-celled, roundish, innate, reddish purple. Ovary inferior, wholly buried in the tube of tho calyx, L2-colled; ovules 2 in each cell, ascending, anatropal; styles 1 or 2, filiform, smooth; stigmas simple. [Obs. This description applies to the common form of the Hawthorn; but it vanes much in the form of its-leaves, their downiness, and other small details.]