282 FLORA ANTARCTICA. [Fuegia, the 



DC. Prodr. vol. iv. p. 53. Hook. Ic. Plant, t. 16. Polyearpon Magellanicum, Lmn. fil. Snppl. p. 115. 

 Foist. Conim. Goett. vol. ix. p. 23. t. 3. Orites depressa, Banks and Sol. in Mus. Banks, cum icone. 



Hab. South Chili and Fuegia ; from the Chonos Archipelago to Cape Horn ; Forster, Banks and 

 Solander, Capt. King, C. Darwin, Esq., J. B. H. 



I have examined several specimens of this plant hi the collections of Capt. King and Mr. Darwin, and find 

 uniformly three stamens and three styles ; the flowers seem occasionally incomplete, and then are scarcely half the 

 size of the fertile ones, and with much shorter stamens and styles. Tuhe of the calyx conical, its limb irregu- 

 larly cut into 5-7 segments of unequal length, there are also one or two bractese, so placed on the ovarium that 

 they are with difficulty distinguishable from the calycine lobes. The petals are also inserted with the latter and they 

 seem to pass the one into the other ; they are white and of unequal size, much smaller in the incomplete than in the 

 fertile flowers. Within the petals is a broad flat disk, from the centre of which arise the stamens, three in number, 

 alternating with, but almost united at then - base to, the three long diverging styles : the filaments are elongate and 

 subulate ; the anthers extrorse ; the pollen globular, rough, and containing an obscurely three-lobed nucleus. Ovarium 

 three-celled, each cell bearing at the upper portion of the inner angle a somewhat Meshy placenta, covered with many 

 series of horizontal or ascending ovules. Apparently only a few seeds ripen in each cell. 



Donatia is a very anomalous genus of Saxifrages, though I entirely agree with M. St. Hilaire that it does belong to 

 that Order. The gradual passage of the leaves into bracts, of the bracts into calycine lobes, and of these again 

 into the petals, together with the adnate tube of the calyx, and the extrorse anthers, (a sufficiently obvious, but 

 hitherto unnoticed character, foreign to Saxifrageee), are what may be observed in Calgcanthea. The analogy 

 between this plant and Stylidea, through Forstera, is very striking, especially in the tufted habit and linear leaves, 

 in the often abortive flowers, the form of the inferior ovaiy, and the irregular insertion of the calycine lobes and of 

 the bracts on the tube of the calyx, hi the variable number of the unequal petals, which, though gamopetalous in 

 Forstera and Stylidea, are occasionally separate in the alhed Orders Lobeliacea> and Goodenoviea, in the flat disk 

 intervening between the base of the petals and the stamens, in the close application of the filaments to and their 

 alternation with the three styles, altogether forming, as it were, one body hi the centre of the flower, in the 

 extrorse anthers and somewhat too in the form of the pollen; in the axile placentation and numerous ascending 

 ovules, and in the form of the seed, so far as I can compare it with immature ones of Forstera clavigera, excepting 

 that the raphe in Donatia is prominent. 



The Donatia fascicularis is very abundant throughout Fuegia and the western portions of South Chili, covering 

 the surface of the ground in densely-matted and widely-extended, hard, bright-green patches : composing, with 

 a few other plants, such as Caltha. appendiciilata and particularly Astvlia pnmila, the greater proportion of the 

 peat-earth in those countries. It is one of the few bog plants, characteristic of the South Fuegian Flora, that has 

 not been detected in the Falkland Islands. 



XXI. UMBELLIFERiE, Juss. 



1. AZORELLA, Gaud. 



§ I. Caulibus dense fastigiatis, foliis subsessilibus arete imiricatis coriaceis, umbelUs Irevissime 



pedunculatis : — Chamitis, Banks et Sol. 



1. Azokella caspitosa, Cav.; dense cfespitosa, foliis arete irnbricatis basi latioribus vaginantibus 

 patentibus subrecurvis linearibus acutis integerrimis coriaceis vagina filamentosa, umbella florente abbreviata 

 inter folia surama sessili, calycis tubo piloso margine obtuse et brevissirne 5-lobo, fructu immature oblongo 

 subquadrato dorso compresso. Azorella casspitosa, Cav. Ic. vol. v. p. 57. t. 484. f. 2. Poiret, Encycl. Si/ppl. 

 vol. i. p. 551. DC. Prodr. vol. iv. p. 77. A. gunrmifera, Poiret, 1. c. A. crassifolia, Persooti, Si/n. vol. i. 



