seven springing from one foot-stalk, and four or five footstalks from each bud, all centring round the straight spike of blossoms, which alone points upright, while the leaves hang drooping round it. Then how fast they grow, as if they all were racing which should come to their full size first, the spikes shooting higher and higher; the leaflets, which to-day were as long as a baby's finger, are to-morrow quite as long as your own, the next day a man could hardly span them, and in a week it must be a giant indeed who could lay the leaf on the palm of his hand. Next, the May sunshine opens the blossom buds on that tall upright branch, where they grow together in little bunches of three, twenty-two of these threes perhaps on one spike, each with a calyx divided into five, a corolla of five petals, with seven stamens, and one pistil, its germ round and its style tapering. The petals are white, but the two upper ones have a large spot of colour on them, sometimes yellow and sometimes pink, and this gives the flowers a peculiarly pretty variegated appearance. Beautiful things! I am always sorry when the white petals fall off and the tree of noble spikes loses its beauty and ceases to be what it has been very well named, a giant's nosegay. It would be too much for the poor tree to maintain and bring to perfection a fruit for every one of the sixty-six flowers on each spike; so only two or three on each even form their fruit, and of these one or two generally fall off, and lie like little green prickly balls on the ground; the others swell into a large prickly green case, with a beautiful smooth lining, like white kid leather, fashioned into two cells, holding the delight of all children, two polished brown seeds, as large as a marble, and veined and smooth as the mahogany dining-table. What a prize they are, and what fun to

pick them up and play with them; and how they are admired, especially when only half ripe, with their brown and white in spots like a piebald horse. If you put them in the fire beware, for the heat turns their moisture to steam, and in trying to break out of their hard case the steam drives them out with a bounce, breaks the case, and makes it fly all over the room. Don't eat them either, for they would make you very sick; leave them to deer, which are very fond of them. There is another kind of horsechestnut, with red blossoms and smooth fruit, not nearly so handsome as the common kind. Now we have come to another tree, we will not leave it without my telling you something about bark. Did you ever peel a stick? First there is a thin brown skin, next a thicker coat, green outside, which is apt to hurt one's fingers. These are the two coats in their youth, and they are always growing and thickening each year, not from the outside, but by layers from within. The inner rind is called the liber, and on this the Romans used to write, and so in Latin a book was named liber, and you know in English a number of books is termed a library. Who would have thought of a library being so called from the bark of a tree! The bark, I said, grows from within, receiving layers from the useful sap-wood, and so the outer coat of the tree is always growing too tight for it.

Some trees, such as the horse-chestnut, seem to manage nevertheless to keep their garments whole, but the birch peels off its old skin in long thin purplish ribbons, that are tempting to pull at; the plane makes a ragged figure of itself by casting off its jacket in great flakes, and the oak and elm show deep furrows in their outer bark where it has split and parted wider each year, to make room for the under growth of the liber and the enlarging rings of the sap-wood.

CHAPTER XXI

SUB-CLASS II

STAMENS ON THE CALYX-MANY PETALS

WE have been going through one great sub-class of the first class. That first order, you remember, is of plants that grew from the outside-Endogens, and have two seed leaves-so as to be dicotyledons. The first class again of this order is of plants with stamens growing on the receptacles. We have done with that class. Now for another. This time the class is of flowers where the stamens grow on the calyx.

The first half of these, or sub-class, as the learned call it, have many petals to their flowers—like a rose; the the second half have petals all in one, like the primrose.

We begin with the many petalled set. Some of the tribes we have talked of before; for the two first are the Butterfly flowers or Pea tribe, and the Roses, of which we talked in June.

I told you about most of the eighth class, with parts in fours and twice fours, when we were about the last bells of summer; there are only a few more worth mentioning, such as the bright yellow-wort, with its stiff stem and handsome flowers, and the whole tribe of whortleberries and cranberries.

It used to be valued

now little regarded, If picked to pieces

We pass on to the Burnet tribe, droll-looking flowers growing in clusters, the blossoms of which come out a few at a time on its round green head. for the food of cattle, and though it is it is often to be found in grass fields. these little flowers will be found to have each a number of drooping stamens hanging down in crimson tassels. There is a pretty green and red moth that feeds on it and is called after it.

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We now and then see the almond tree in gardens, its delicate pink blossoms coming long before the leaves, which in one variety have their under sides covered with a white cottony substance that gives them a gray, dull appearance. It is this hoariness that is referred to in that last and most solemn chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes, where the Preacher says among other tokens that the time is coming for "man's going to his long home," that the almond tree shall flourish." The almond tree grows wild in the Holy Land, and its fruits were among the gifts that Jacob desired his sons to carry to the governor of Egypt, whom they knew so little. The rod by which the Lord was pleased to show that he had chosen Aaron to be His priest blossomed with almond flowers and was laid up in the Ark. The wild almond, with its branches, buds, and blossoms, was the pattern of the seven-branched golden candlestick or lamp-stand. The knops we read of were for buds, the lights the flowers. Perhaps it was because the almond is the first tree that buds and shows promise.

The almonds we use are chiefly brought from Smyrna ; they are much grown about Avignon, in France, where the hoary leaves are said to give the country a dull desolate aspect. The outer case of the nut is brown, and of a

long form, to suit the white crescents that look so inviting on purple raisins, or are the hearts of such very large sugar-plums that people with moderate-sized mouths had rather have nothing to do with them, and only very small people have much desire to have such a mouthful.

That we may not be entirely un-English, we must just mention our pretty mountain-ash, its white flowers, feathery leaves, and brilliant red berries. It belongs to

the same family as apples and pears, and has, like them, five pistils. The Scots call it rowan, and used to believe it had many virtues, and that a sprig of it would protect them from many strange evils.

Nearly related is the pretty Lady's Mantle, so called from its elegant leaf, somewhat like that of a geranium. The flower is a queer one in loose spikes, and grows in rough grassy places.

Of the strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry we spoke before, and near akin with their clustered heads and many stamens are the spiræas or meadow-sweets.

The creamy meadow-sweet, otherwise prettily called Queen of the meadow, must be mentioned here. The meadow-sweet has a very pretty, irregular corymb, and is particularly pretty mixed with willow-herb and purple loose-strife. There is a garden kind of meadow-sweet about which I have another pleasant school-child story to tell you :

We had once a girl who had a very pleasant, quick, obliging way, an honest face, and good temper, that made us like her very much. We took a great deal of pains with her, and I do believe she was very fond of us, but, after a time she got careless and idle, did not do well in her first place, and we lost sight of her. After a long time her two little sisters came to school one Sunday each