PORTULACE.E, AND THEIR ALLLES. 71 
Which it possesses are also to be found in species which have not 
the same capsule or habit. 
The stamens are reduced to 5 in Triplateia, in a few Alsines, and 
occasionally in other species which have little else in common 
with them. 
The styles and, consequently, the carpels are reduced to 2, and 
the ovules to 4, with a depressed globular capsule, in Gouffeia, 
Lepyrodiclis, and Odontostemma, and this brings these four species 
(Lepyrodiclis having two) technically as near to Bufonia as to 
Arenaria; but their habit is so dissimilar from each other (except 
that of Odontostemma to one species of Lepyrodiclis), and that of 
two of them so near to that of two corresponding species of Are- 
naria proper, that they can only form a very artificial group, which 
we prefer to consider as a section of Arenaria, where a similar but 
less constant reduction of carpels or of ovules occurs in other very 
dissimilar species. 
It might be said that where two or three of these exceptional 
characters are combined, such as the split capsule and reduced 
ovules and stamens in Zviplateia, or unisexuality, large glands, and 
rudimentary dissepiments in Honckeneya, they might warrant ge- 
nerie separation; and so it would be if any such plant had these 
characters exclusively, or if they were similarly combined in seve- 
ral species having some general features in common ; but as neither 
is the case in any of the above instances, we can only consider the 
plants so isolated as exceptional species, not as separate groups. 
To the numerous small genera above enumerated as separated 
from Arenaria on insufficient grounds, we may add the following 
nine proposed or adopted by Reichenbach on still more trifling 
characters: Sabulina, Tryphane, Facchinia, Alsinanthe, Neumayera, 
Wierzbeckia, Plinthine, Pettera, and Eremogone. 
With regard to Buffonia, it is with much hesitation that we 
have retained it as a small distinct genus ; for the distinctive cha- 
racters are very slight; and although the four (5 or 6 P) species 
which compose it have much resemblance in habit, they also come 
very near to some of the small-flowered fine-leaved Arenarias. 
Sagina was formerly a purely artificial genus, comprising all the 
tetramerous Alsinex ; but as some of these have been shown to be 
mere varieties of pentamerous species placed in Cerastium or in 
Spergula, the genus has been remodelled by Fenzl, so as to exclude 
S. erecta and to include those Spergulas of Linnzus which have no 
stipules. Tt has thus become much more natural, and although 
still very nearly allied to some of the smaller Arenarias, it is well 
