76 MR. BENTHAM ON CARYOPHYLLEA, ETC. 
flower; but this want of symmetry between the number of stamens 
and that of the petals or sepals is very common in the whole 
group. 
Telephium is exceptional among Molluginez, in that the ovary 
is divided into cells at the base only, but the dissepiments, short 
as they are, are firm and persistent; the sepals, petals, and sta- 
mens are isomerous, and the stamens are opposite the sepals, as 
in several Caryophyllez ; but the alternate leaves, the inflorescence, 
the consistence of the sepals, and other characters are those of 
Molluginez, and a very cursory comparison with Orygia shows a 
very intimate connexion of the two genera. 
Orygia (a single species, dispersed over the hot dry regions of 
Afriea and Asia) has indefinite stamens surrounded by narrow- 
linear petals, very variable in number or occasionally entirely 
wanting, and which are by some termed staminodia or barren 
stamens. In this respect the genus approaches Glinus, whilst the 
foliage, habit, and inflorescence are very nearly those of Telephium, 
under which genus it has sometimes been classed. 
Glinus forms so gradually the passage from Orygia to Mollugo, 
that it is hard to assign to it precise limits ; the common species 
has usually indefinite stamens (between 10 and 20) as in Orygia, 
but clustered axillary flowers as in several Mollugos, whilst the 
woolly indumentum and the large calyxes give it a very different 
aspect from the latter genus. A second species (or, according to 
some, a small-flowered variety only) has the reduced stamens of 
Mollugo, but the aspect of Glinus; and the Mollugo spergula of 
Linnzus, with the small glabrous flowers and few stamens of Mol- 
lugo, is considered by Fenzl as a third species of Glinus, of which 
it has the strophiolate seeds. The inflorescence is rather that of 
M. verticillata (which has no strophiola to the seeds) than of 
Glinus. This gradual connexion might suggest the propriety of 
considering Glinus altogether as a section only of Mollugo, which, 
after all, would only contain about a dozen species. 
Pharnaceum is a Cape genus of about eighteen species, distin- 
guished from Mollugo chiefly by fimbriate stipules and a peculiar 
habit. Several of the species have also a cupular hypogynous disk 
within the stamens, but this is not constant even in all the species 
considered as true Pharnacea. A small section, Hyperteles, E. Mey., 
retained by Harvey and Sonder as a distinct genus, has no disk 
and indefinite stamens; an increase, however, in the number of 
stamens beyond 5 occurs in some species considered as true Phar- 
naceu, and the habit of the two sections is the same. 
