302 Miscellaneous » 



3. A scaly involucre proper to each flower, composed of five bracts 

 united together to a great extent so as to form a tubular calyx, and 

 persistent after flowering, when it envelopes the capsule. 



4. A pedunculated flower in the interior of this involucre ; its 

 perigonium is formed of six membranous, petaloid leaflets, arranged 

 in two rows, and furnished with a pretty long claw, as in the Sile- 

 nacecB. 



5. The sestivation of these leaflets of the perigonium is imbricated, 

 and they cover each other at the tips. 



6. Six stamina arranged in two rows, of which the external are 

 the shortest ; they are inserted by filiform filaments upon the throat 

 of the perigonium, and the anthers are bilocular and introrse. 



7. Ovary stipitate, trilocular, with a suigle ovule in each cell. 



8. Ovules amphitropal, reversed, inserted towards the middle of 

 the inner angle of the cell. 



9. Stigmata trifid j each division furnished with a large lobe 

 below. 



10. Capsule rostrated, splitting into three valves (loculicido-tri- 

 valve), with a single seed, furnished with a crustaceous testa and a 

 ^eshy perisperm, and containing an axile embryo, half the length of 

 the perisperm. 



From these characters it appears to me that we must regard this 

 plant as the type of a new family, to which I propose to give the 

 name of Aphyllanthacece. 



This family approaches the Juncece in the characters of the organs 

 of vegetation, and the Liliacece in those of the organs of reproduction, 

 so that it appears to form the passage between these two natural 

 families of plants. Nevertheless it differs essentially from both, 

 in the presence of an involucre which persists after inflorescence, 

 and in the imbricated aestivation of the leaflets of the perigonium, 

 even of those of the outer row, which is valvate in the Jmicece and 

 LiliacecBy the leaflets of which have the apices perfectly free, even in 

 those species in which the leaflets cover each other slightly at the 

 margins. In AphyllantheSy on the contrary, the leaflets of the peri- 

 gonium cover each other at the tips, so that a form of bud is 

 produced different from that of the LiliacecB and Juncece. 



In other respects the Aphyllanthacece differ principally from the 

 Juncece in the membranous and petaloid nature of the leaflets of the 

 perigonium, which wither and fall after inflorescence ; in the crusta- 

 ceous testa of the seed, and especially in the embryo, which is 

 situated in the axis of a fleshy perisperm of double its length. In 

 the Juncece the leaflets of the perigonium are glumaceous and rarely 

 subpetaloid, but always persistent ; their seeds have a membranous 

 testa and enclose a small embryo, which only occupies the base of 

 the perisperm. 



Besides the characters already indicated, the Aphyllanthacece also 

 differ from the Liliacece in the characters of the vegetation, and in 

 the singular structure of the flower, which presents a distinct resem- 

 blance to that of a Silenaceous plant, whence is i)artly derived that 

 resemblance to a Dianthus noticed even by the older writers. 



