like the shape of a sword. Flowers large, purple, and very showy. Blue Flag. This is very common in meadows and wet places in the early part of summer. Its leaves are sword-shaped. The flowers are similar to those of the flower-de-luce, but smaller. They are purple, striped with yellow. It is sometimes called poison flag. The root is a violent emetic. Therefore you must not put it in your mouth.

Digynia.

Sugar Cane. This is much cultivated in the West-Indies. It grows eight or nine feet high, having jointed stems, and long leaves of a greenish colour. It is from the sugar cane that sugar is made. The juice of the cane is very sweet. When the cane is cut down, it is stripped of the leaves, and cut into pieces about a yard long. These are carried to a

mill, and bruised between large wooden rollers, covered with iron. The juice is then boiled in large caldrons, or kettles, and the scum is taken off. It is again boiled until it begins to thicken, when it is put into large shallow wooden vessels. Here, as it cools, it turns to sugar, It does not all become sugar-what is left is called molasses. This sugar is called brown sugar. Much of it, however, is still farther purified,) until it becomes white. It is then made into loaves, and called loaf sugar,

Great quantities of sugar are made in the West-Indies, and exported to different countries. Many years ago sugar was used only as a medicine, but now it is used by everybody in various ways. (A great many people are employed in making and selling sugar, and many millions of dollars are paid for it every

very

year. Yet it is all made from a plant. How useful and valuable the sugar cane is! Wheat and Rye. You all know what these are. These two kinds of grain are very valuable to mankind. We are dependent upon them for bread. They are raised in great abundance by all civilized nations. They are biennial plants, being sown in one summer and ripening the next. They are exotics, being brought from other countries.

Oats. They are an annual plant, everywhere cultivated for horses.

CLASS IV. TETANDRIA.

Its flowers

Teasel. This is an exotic. grow in heads or bunches, which are somewhat egg-shaped, and covered with hooked prickles. It is cultivated on account of the burrs, and they are used to raise a nap on woollen cloth.

Dogwood Tree. This tree, sometimes called boxwood, grows in great abundance in all our forests and woods. It is a smallish tree, and is covered with a rough, reddish bark. It appears very beautiful in the spring, when it is covered with large white flowers. The four large white leaves, which are generally taken for the corol, are the calyx leaves; the corols being very small and in the centre of this calyx. If you examine the flowers you will find them in little bunches, and you will see that each of these large white calyx leaves has a twisted or curv-` ed notch at the end. The bark of the tree is sometimes used in medicine.

CLASS V. PETANDRIA.

Jersey Tea. A small shrub common in the woods. It has crowded bunches of small white Its leaves are serrate, and tapering to a point. It is called Jersey tea,

flowers in June.

because in the revolutionary war its leaves were used as a substitute for tea.

Touch-me-not. This plant grows near brooks and wet shady places. Its flowers are yellow, and shaped somewhat like little 'pitchers. It is called touch-me-not, because if you touch the pericarp, or seed-bag, when the seeds are ripe, it will immediately burst and scatter the seed. It is indigenous. But there is another touch-me-not, sometimes called snappers, which is an exotic. This is cultivated in flower-gardens, and has white or purple flowers.

Violet. There are many species of this beautiful flower. The garden violet has flowers which are partly yellow and partly purple. They are very handsome, and appear as soon as the snow is gone. This is an exotic.