Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/472

 442 is perhaps as well placed in the next Order.

4. Decandria is by far the most numerous as well as natural, Order of this Class, consequently the genera are difficult to characterize. They compose the family of proper Papilionaceæ or Leguminosæ, the Pea, Vetch, Broom, &c. Their stamens are most usually 9 in one set, with a single one separate.

The genera are arranged in sections variously characterized.

* Stamens all united, that is, all in one set. The plants of this section are really not diadelphous but monadelphous. See Spartium, ''Engl. Bot. t.'' 1339. Some of them, as Lupinus, and Ulex, t. 742, 743, have indeed the tenth stamen evidently distinguished from the rest, though incorporated with them by its lower part. Others have a longitudinal slit in the upper side of the tube, or the latter easily separates there, as Ononis, t. 682, without any indication of a separate stamen. Here therefore the Linnæan System swerves from its strict artificial laws, in compliancy