capsule 2-celled, opening in the inside; seeds numerous. This Order consists chiefly of herbaceous plants, with alternate, rarely opposite leaves. The species contain no very important properties, though some British plants are slightly astringent, and some foreign species are more so. The Heucheria Americana, a plant of this Order, is commonly called Alum-root from its astringency; and several species of Weinmannia are employed in the manufacture of leather, as well as in the adulteration of Peruvian bark. The genus Saxifraga is a very extensive one. It yields some mucilage, but its greatest worth is the beauty of its flowers, which often adorn lofty mountains, or in other cases deck the barren wall or rock. They are frequently the most lovely objects in Alpine wildernesses, flowering with the blue Gentians in spots almost inaccessible to the traveller, and giving by their leaves an almost perpetual verdure to barren soils. Some species grow on marshes or by river sides.

1. SAXÍFRAGA (Saxifrage). — Calyx in 5 divisions; petals 5; stamens 10; styles 2; capsule 2-celled, 2-beaked, opening between the beaks; seeds numerous. Name from saxum, a stone, and frango, to break, probably from some species growing among the crevices

of rocks.

2. CHRYSOSPLENIUM (Golden Saxifrage).-Calyx in 4 divisions; petals none; stamens 8, rarely 10; styles 2 ; capsules 2, beaked. Name from the Greek, chrysos, gold, and splen, the spleen, from some imagined virtues of the plant.