[Illustration: FIG. 55.--Lily of the Valley.]
The garden lilies belong to the natural family of the _Liliaceæ_, which includes the following sub-orders:--
1. _Tulipeæ_, tulip tribe; bulbous plants, with the segments of the perianth scarcely adherent in a tube.
2. _Hemerocallideæ_, day-lily tribe; bulbous plants, with a tubular perianth.
3. _Scilleæ_, or _Alliæ_, squill or onion tribe; bulbous, with black and brittle testa.
4. _Anthericeæ_ or _Asphodeleæ_, asphodel tribe; roots fascicled or fibrous, leaves neither coriaceous nor permanent.
5. _Convollarieæ_, lily of the valley tribe; stem developed as a rhizome or tuber.
6. _Asparageæ_, asparagus tribe; stem usually fully developed, arborescent, branched in some cases, and leaves frequently permanent and coriaceous.
7. _Alonieæ_, aloes tribe; stem usually developed, arborescent, with succulent leaves.
8. _Aphyllantheæ_, grass-tree tribe; characterised by a rush-like habit and membranous imbricated bracts.
Let me now direct your attention, reader, to a pretty plant, of very elegant appearance: crowned, as it is, by a cluster of rosy flowers, it would not disgrace our well-kept parterres. It is called the common Centaury (_Erythræa centaurium_). You will never see it in the fields side by side with the _Delphinium_; but in July and August will meet with it frequently on the borders of woodland paths and open glades.
Would you create for yourself by the study of nature a source of enjoyment equally pure and inexhaustible, adopt a method of classification for your own use, and, to facilitate you in the task, take for your types those plants which are at once the commonest and most characteristic of each season. Quite at your ease, you may begin your analysis by examining the parts which, like the calyx and the corolla, most attract your attention. The most rational plan, however, would be, to commence with the seed, and to follow it through all the wonderful phases of its life, from the development of the embryo to the maturity of the fruit. Unfortunately, we are all compelled to take time into account; time is so much more precious than money,--it is the measurement of our existence. Undoubtedly, the mind, with its gigantic strides, like those of an Homeric god, tends to overleap the confines both of time and space. But the senses, without whose co-operation the intellect could not create science, never fail to remind us that we are, alas! but mortals. By this incessant appeal to order, we are under the necessity of doing, not what we _would_, but what we _can_. And the part we really play is, consequently, much more modest than that which we love to imagine ourselves as playing.