66 MR. BENTHAM ON CARYOPHYLLE.E, 
Uebelinia, Hochst., a single Abyssinian species, may, however, 
have sufficient claims to be admitted as a genus. Besides the re- 
duction of the stamens to 5, the shape of the calyx, the habit, and 
inflorescence are very different from those of Lychnis, reminding 
one of Gypsophila cerastioides. The calyx has 10 ribs, and the 
styles are 5 as in Lychnis. 
The numerous species of the tribe ALSINE® have always been 
found very difficult to divide into natural genera with definite 
characters. For those without stipules more than thirty have 
been proposed, of which, however, we think it most convenient to 
adopt the following eleven only: 1. Holostewm, Linn. ; 2. Ceras- 
tium, Linn.; 3. Stellaria, Linn.; 4. Brachystemma, Don; 5. 
Arenaria, Linn.; 6. Buffonia, Linn.; 7. Sagina, Linn.; 8. Colo- 
banthus, Bartl. ; 9. Thylacospermum, Fenzl; 10. Schiedea, Cham. 
et Schlecht.; and 11. Queria, Linn. ; and to these we add the two 
stipulate genera—12. Spergula, Linn., and 13. Spergularia, Pers. 
Of these genera the four principal ones were supposed to have 
been well defined by the earlier botanists— Cerastium by 5 styles 
and bifid petals, Stellaria by 3 styles and bifid petals, Arenaria 
by 8 styles and entire petals, Sagina by 4 styles and entire petals. 
But in each case species have been since observed where these 
characters have not proved constant, or where their strict adop- 
tion has occasioned severances too purely artificial to be main- 
tained, and others have been successively called in aid. 
In Cerastium, the form of the capsule (its elongated apex always 
shortly and regularly divided into twice as many teeth as styles) 
appears not only the best corroborative character, but even to 
take precedence over those derived from the divided petals and 
number of styles, as being more in conformity with general habit. 
We would thus, with Fenzl, bring into Cerastium the Stellaria 
cerastioides, Linn., and S. viscida, Bieb., although they have the 3 
styles of Stellaria, as well as the small genus Menchia, in which 
the petals are entire or notched only and the flowers isomerous 
throughout as in Sagina, although the styles are opposite the 
sepals as in Cerastium. The two species referred to Mænchia, the 
one with 4-merous, the other with 5-merous flowers, were there- 
fore formerly placed, the first in Sagina, the other in Cerastium, 
but it is now generally believed that they are mere varieties of one 
species. Again, the Arenaria purpurascens, Ram., a Pyrenean 
plant with much of the habit of Cerastium trigynum (Stellaria 
cerastioides), but with the petals and styles of Arenaria, and pro- 
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