Phytolacea. | PHYTOLACCACEZ (Hill). 459 
about 8; fruit globose, umbilicate, syncarpous, purplish-black ; 
carpels about 8; styles persistent. Moguin in DC. Prodr. xiii. ii. 
32; Griseb. Fl. Brit. West Ind. 58; Benth. Fl. Austral. v. 143; 
Baker & C. H. Wright in Dyer, Fl. Trop. Afr. vi. i. 98; Walter in 
Engl. Pflanzenr. iv. 83, 58. P. octandra, var. grandiflora, Moquin, 
Le. 32. P. americana, var. mexicana, Linn. Sp. Pl. ed. i. 441. 
Eastern Recion: Natal; Fields Hill, 1000 ft., Wood, 1934! 
Also in Tropical Africa and America. 
Mr. Wood states that the plant was unknown in Natal until the railway cuttings 
were made on Fields and Bothas Hills between Durban and Maritzburg. Before 
the railway was opened for traffic the plant appeared in profusion on the banks 
among the excavated soil. It was said in 1885 that it had not been found more 
than 200-300 yards from the railway line. 
Orver CXII. POLYGONACEA. 
(By C. H. Wricut.) 
Flowers regular, hermaphrodite or polygamo-diecious. Perianth 
inferior, coloured or greenish; tube short; lobes 4—6, imbricate. 
Stamens usually 6-9, inserted at the base of the perianth; fila- 
ments free or connate at the base; anthers 3-celled, dehiscing 
longitudinally. Disk annular. Ovary superior, sessile, trigonous or 
lenticular ; styles 2-3, distinct ; stigmas dilated or capitate ; ovule 
solitary, orthotropous, basal, sessile or stipitate. Fruit an indehis- 
cent trigonous or lenticular nut. Seeds similar in shape to the nut ; 
testa membranous; albumen abundant; embryo usually more or 
less excentric ; cotyledons flat, narrow or broad ; radicle long. — 
Herbs or shrubs; leaves alternate, with the base of the petiole dilated into 
& membranous sheath ; flowers small, racemose or axillary, usually fascicled in 
the axils of persistent membranous bracts. 
Distrip. Species about 600, cosmopolitan. 
I. Oxygonum.— Flowers polygamous. Perianth accrescent and hardened at 
the base ; limb marcescent ; segments 5. Herbs. 
Il. Polygonum.— Flowers usually hermaphrodite. Perianth usually persistent, 
but not accrescent; segments 5. Herbs. 
III. Rumex.—Flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual. Perianth-segments 6, 
rarely 4, the outer unchanged in fruit, the inner enlarged and 
membranous. Herbs, rarely shrubs. 
IV. Emex.—Flowers moncecious. Perianth-tube accrescent and hardened in 
fruit; 3 outer segments accrescent and ending in spreading spines, 
3 inner smaller and erect. Rigid herbs, 
I. OXYGONUM, Burch. 
Flowers polygamous. Perianth-tube in the hermaphrodite flowers 
constricted above the ovary, in the male flowers almost obsolete ; 
limb coloured, 5-lobed, marcescent. Stamens 8, inserted on the 
