Twelve Males, Dodecandria. Twelve Stamens
XII. TWENTY MALES, Icosandria. Twenty Stamens inserted on the calyx orflower-cup; as is well seen in the last Figure of No. xii. in the annexedPlate.
XV. FOUR POWERS, Tetradynamia. Six Stamens; of which four are taller,and the two lower ones opposite to each other; as is seen in the thirdFigure of the upper row in No. 15.
Words in this poem
- icosandria n.
- A Linnæan class of plants, having twenty or more stamens inserted in the calyx. [NL., fr. Gr. icosandrie.]
- tetradynamia n.
- A Linnæan class of plants having six stamens, four of which are longer than the others.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Twelve Males, Dodecandria. Twelve Stamens is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Botanic Garden. Part 2, Containing the Loves of the Plants. A Poem. With Philosophical Notes., Project Gutenberg ebook #10671; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Erasmus Darwin, Twelve Males, Dodecandria. Twelve Stamens, in The Botanic Garden, Part II: The Loves of the Plants (1789), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10671, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/darwin-loves-of-plants/twelve-males-dodecandria-twelve-stamens.html, id L23537.
Form and metre
Twelve Males, Dodecandria. Twelve Stamens is 6 lines in 2 stanzas of 3 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| XII. TWENTY MALES, Icosandria. Twenty Stamens inserted on the calyx or | 20 | ·/˘·····/˘··˘/˘··/˘· |
| flower-cup; as is well seen in the last Figure of No. xii. in the annexed | 18 | /········/˘·····˘/ |
| Plate. | 1 | · |
| XV. FOUR POWERS, Tetradynamia. Six Stamens; of which four are taller, | 17 | ··/············/˘ |
| and the two lower ones opposite to each other; as is seen in the third | 17 | ···/·/˘··/˘······ |
| Figure of the upper row in No. 15. | 9 | /˘··/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.