Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/445

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PENTANDRIA.
415

machia, t. 761.—Convolvulus and Campanula, two large well-known genera, come afterwards; then Lobelia, t. 140, Impatiens, t. 937, and Viola, t. 619, 620, brought hither from the abolished Linnæan order Syngenesia Monogamia. The Luridæ follow, so called from their frequently dark, gloomy aspect, indicative of their narcotic and very dangerous qualities; as Datura, t. 1288, Hyoscyamus, t. 591, Atropa, t. 592, and Nicotiana, or Tobacco. In a subsequent part we meet with the Vine, Currant and Ivy, and the Order finishes with some of the natural family of Contortæ, so called from their oblique or twisted corolla, and which are many of them very fine plants, as Vinca, t. 514, 917. They often abound with milky juice, generally highly acrid; but Dr. Afzelius met with a shrub of this order at Sierra Leone, the milk of whose fruit was so sweet, as well as copious, as to be used instead of cream for tea. This is certainly what no one could have guessed from analogy. Gardenia is erroneously reckoned a contorta by Linnæus.