orchids give vanilla. They are a useless set,
and that is the only thing they do give,
excepting quaint crawling flowers, which
leave you in doubt whether they are flowers
or flies. From the irises we get orris-root
and saffron; from the meadow-saffron,
colchicum, a modern panacea; the lily-tribe has
onions, squills, and aloes, as well as Turks'
caps, tulips, New Zealand flax and tuberoses.

From the manioc, we get a deadly poison,
—used by the natives to poison their spears
and arrows,— cassava, and tapioca; the tacca
has a kind of arrow-root which might serve
our turn, if the reed-like maranta should fail
us; the triosteum, one of the honeysuckle-
tribe, has a berry which is not unlike coffee
when roasted, and chicory or endive is one of
the composite. From the buckwheats,
polygonaceæ, emerges rhubarb; laurels have
nutmegs, cinnamon, and greenheart wood, besides
prussic acid, and, in the mezereon,
exquisitely scented flowers and poisonous berries.
Willows give us osier baskets and chip-
bonnets; the cork-tree cuts up into delectable
hats; from the bark of the aspen the
Russian twists his door-mats, and the Carib
does the same with the cabbage-palm. Arrowroot
comes from the "reed-like maranta;"
ginger is the root of the zingiber officinale;
quassia is from the bark of the simaruba,
called after the typical negro Quashi, who
first used it as a febrifuge. There is an
edible passion-flower seed, and another
passion-flower which makes an intoxicating
drink, said to be a safe narcotic; on another,
again, wild swine are fed, while the hard
shell-like rind of its fruit makes toys and
boxes; there is a toothache tree, xantholyxum,
held good against toothache; tea is
half a camellia; the lancewood (anona) bears
delicious fruits, and makes the Brazilians
capital substitutes for corks; and the baobas,
one of the sterculiaceæ, is the largest tree
in the world. Which is not a mean distinction;
but we wish its name did not put us
so much in mind of a big baby.

In the East we find some very interesting
golden-acorned trees, chrysobalanaceæ; of
which we will notice only two, the cocoa-
plum, or icaco, of the West Indies, and the
rough plum of Sierra Leone. The rough
plum is a magnificent tree, "sixty feet high,
with long leaves, and large terminal branches
of flowers, succeeded by a fruit of plum-like
appearance" The betel-leaf is a pepper;
the betel-nut, areca, a palm; and the betel-
nut and betel-leaf are eaten together. The
nut is sliced, then enclosed in a leaf of the
betel pepper (piper betle), and is eaten as an
intoxicating stimulant, also as a sweetener ol
the breath, as orris-root with us. Guiacum
is from the bark of one of the yoke-leaved or
zygophyllaceæ, better known as lignum vitæ,
and that hard, enormous tree, the teak-tree, is
of the same natural order as the pretty little
Maids of Honour and pallid Mrs. Holfords,
which we peg down in our borders under the
general name of verbenas. It seems strange
that one of the hardest woods known should
belong to the same order as a pretty, humble,
tender, creeping, useless garden flower!
Lavender, thyme, rosemary, hyssop, mints
and peppermints, the fashionable perfume
patchouli, horehound, and sage, all come from
the same order, the labiatæ; tobacco is a
solanum, so is the potato, so are the black
nightshade and the woody-solanum dulcamara
or bitter sweet— the red berries of
which tend greatly to reduce the infant
population of wooded districts; so are the
love-apple and the capsicum; while the foxglove
and the eyebright are both of the same,
an antiscrofulous, family.

Nothing, indeed, is so strange in botany,
as the variety of members composing the
natural orders. How a medlar, a cherry,
apples and pears and the little green lady's
mantle, the starry tormentil and the pimpernel,
strawberries, raspberries, hawthorns,
plums, almonds, the silver-weed or goosegrass,
meadow sweet, the mountain ash and
the service-tree, can all come into the same
botanical household as garden roses—all
belong to the same family, and bear the same
surname, rosaceæ,— goes far beyond the
ordinary knowledge of most common-place,
unbotanising, fruit-eating and flower-smelling
individuals, to whom a rose and an apple
would never seem to be cousins german, still
less brothers and sisters! And would any
one think that lauristinus, honeysuckle, elder,
and guelder rose were of the same order, and
included among them the elegant little linnæa,
"the little, depressed, abject, early-flowering,
northern plant"  named after its discoverer,
Linnæus, and just a pale, pink, modest bell,
most fairy-like of all fairy-bells, and not to
be found without loving care and search?
And do the kalmia and the rhododendron
look as if they belonged to the heaths? But
they do, though they are so strong and proud
while the humble ling creeps so timorously
over the moors, holding up its tiny flowers
pleadingly to the sun. Still less should we think
of placing the lily side by side with the prickly
knee-holly, the aloe, and the onion; but in
reality, the lily family includes more strangely
diverse individuals than are mixed together
in this group—growths between which it
would puzzle all but the most learned of the
natural order men, to discern any signs of
likeness. But the farther we advance in
science, the nearer we get to general laws
and typical forms; and the Natural System
in botany is following the rule of all the rest.
Exclusion and isolation used to be at one
time the governing principle both in morals
and in science; catholicity of inclusion and
typical forms, with multiplied points of likeness,
the bent of the present; and the various
uses, substitutions, and likenesses of plants
are so many steps towards the establishment
of that catholic principle: in the vegetable
kingdom at least.