Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/451

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
OCTANDRIA.
421

remarkable, having the calyx in 7 deep segments, 7 petals, 7 germens, and consequently 7 capsules.


Class 8. Octandria. Stamens 8. Orders 4.

1. Monogynia. A very various and rich order, consisting of the well-known Tropæolum or Nasturtium, whose original Latin name, given from the flavour of the plant, like Garden Cresses, is now become its English one in every body's mouth. The elegant and fanciful Linnæan appellation, equivalent to a trophy plant, alludes to its use for decorating bowers, and the resemblance of its peltate leaves to shields, as well as of its flowers to golden helmets, pierced through and through, and stained with blood. See Linn. Hort. Cliff. 143.—Epilobium, Engl. Bot. t. 838, 795, &c., with its allies, makes a beautiful part of this order; but above all are conspicuous the favourite Fuchsia, the chiefly American genus Vaccinium, t. 456, 319, &c.; the immense and most elegant genus Erica, so abundant in southern Africa, but not known in America; and the fragrant