58 MR. BENTHAM ON CARYOPHYLLES, 
pels; and a dehiscent or several-seeded fruit. The opposition of 
the leaves has no exception; the sepals are never reduced, nor the 
petals increased in number, although the latter are often very 
much reduced in size, and in a few species totally deficient; the 
stamens of either series are never increased in number, but occa- 
sionally irregularly reduced, or one or the other series deficient ; 
the ovary, if ever divided into cells, is only so at the very base or 
at a very early stage; the carpels are always closely combined, 
and in some genera the styles also; both are often reduced in 
number below that of the other parts of the flower, but never 
increased, and never reduced to one simple one ; and there is only 
one species where the ovules are reduced to a single oue. In the 
great majority of species the petals and stamens are hypogynous, and 
if,in a few others, the disk which bears them is perigynous, it is only 
slightly so ; and we therefore concur with other botanists in placing 
the order among Thalamiflore. We estimate the total number of 
good species of Caryophyllee at about 800, and we distribute them 
into three tribes: 1. SrneNEa#, with a gamosepalous calyx and 
free styles ; in these the stamens are always hypogynous, and there 
are no stipules; 2. ALSINES, with free sepals and free styles; 
in them the stamens are hypogynous or slightly perigynous, and 
scarious stipules are present only in about half-a-dozen species 
(Spergula and Spergularia); and 3. PoxycanPA, with free se- 
pals and combined styles. The stamens are, as in Alsinex, hypo- 
gynous or slightly perigynous, and the stipules are most frequently, 
or perhaps always, present. 
Our next order is that of the PonvULACEZ, which, with the 
ovary of Caryophyllee, is at once distinguished by the remarkable 
anisomery of the parts of the flower. The sepals are usually 2 
only, with petals varyiug from 3 to 7 or 8; in one species only 
(Lewisia) the sepals are 5 or 6, with 8 to 10 petals. In no case 
are the petals deficient. The stamens are most frequently more 
numerous than the petals, and where equal to them in number, or 
fewer (sometimes only one), they are always opposite to them and 
adhering to their base. It was this remarkable divergence from 
the ordinary arrangement of the stamina in the group of orders 
we are considering, that induced Fenzl to extend the Portulacee 
so as to include all genera where a tendency to a similar arrange- 
ment may have been traced or supposed. But whilst we do full jus- 
tice to the accuracy of Dr. Fenzl's observations on the whole of the 
curvembryonous orders which he has investigated with so much 
detail, we cannot concur in the general views he has taken of their 
