FLORA OF TROPICAL AFRICA. 
OrpeR CIV. NYCTAGINEA. (By J. G. Baker, with 
additions by C. H. Wright.) 
Flowers hermaphrodite, rarely unisexual, regular. Perianth inferior, 
small, herbaceous or petaloid, persistent and usually accrescent; tube 
from short to very long, sometimes circumscissile above the base ; limb 
truncate or 3—5-toothed or -lobed. Stamens 1-«2, hypogynous; 
filaments free or connate into a cup at the base, involute-circinnate in 
bud; anthers dorsifixed, 2-celled, dehiscence longitudinal. Ovary sessile 
or stalked, 1-celled ; style short or long, slender; stigma small, capitel- 
late, peltate or fimbriate; ovule solitary, erect, campylotropous, on a 
short funicle. Fruit (anthocarp) enclosed in the persistent base of the 
perianth, costate, sulcate or winged, sometimes glandular. Seed erect ; 
endosperm scanty or copious ; embryo straight or curved._—Herbs, rarely 
shrubs or trees. Leaves opposite and alternate, sessile or stalked, 
simple, entire, exstipulate. Flowers in terminal or axillary cymes, 
panicles or corymbs; bracts often forming a brightly coloured in- 
volucre. 
Species about 150, chiefly American, from the United States to Chili ; a fewin 
India, the Mascarene and Pacific Isles. 
Bougainvillea spectabilis, Willd., is naturalised at Banana, on the Lower Congo, 
according to Durand and Schinz, Etudes Fil. Congo, i. 231. 
Bracts large, connate. - . .« 1. Mrrasizis. 
Bracts miuute, free 
Herbs; flowers hermaphrodite ; ‘ . 2, BOERHAAVIA, 
Shrubs ; flowers polygamo-dicecious 
Flowers and leaves not fascicled . 
Flowers and leaves fascicled 
8. PISONIA. 
4, PHXOPTILUM, 
1. MIRABILIS, Linn.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PI. iii. 3. 
Involucre calyx-like, 5-lobed, marcescent, 1~2 -flowered. Perianth- 
tube long, constricted above the ovary ; limb rather flattened, 5-lobed, 
B 
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