114 FRANKENIACE^. 



Flowers pedicellate and often fascicled, 5-merous. Sepals with strong 

 midrib, acute. Capsule crustaceous, more or less of the partitions 

 remaining with the axis. 



1. B. Texana, Seubert, in Walp. Kep. i. 285 (1842) ; Hook. Ic. t. 278 

 (1839), under Merimea ; T. & G. Fl. i. 678, under Elatine. Diffusely 

 branched, the branches a foot long more or less ; herbage glandular- 

 pubescent : leaves oblanceolate, acute, serrulate, % — 1% iii- long, nar- 

 rowed to a short petiole : fl. fascicled, pedicellate ; sepals carinate, 1% 

 lines long, exceeding the petals and stamens : capsule globose : seeds 

 smooth and shining. — Moist or very wet places along rivers and ditches, 

 from the middle Sacramento valley, southward to Merced. Although 

 first detected in California by the author, in 1874, the plant is no rarity 

 in the interior of the State. June — Oct. 



Order XIX. FRANKENIACE/E. 

 A. St. Hilaire, Bull, de la Soc. Philom. 22,(1815). 



An order embracing scarcely more than the genus 



FRANKENIA, Linnxus. Herbs or undershrubs with opposite entire 

 small exstipulate leaves usually sessile and even united at base by a 

 slight membranous continuation of the blade. FL small, solitary and 

 sessile in the axils of the very numerous branches and brauchlets, usually 

 5-merous and complete. Calyx tubular, fiirrowed ; the lobes valvate and 

 induplicate in bud. Petals hypogynous, narrowed to a claw which bears 

 an appendage on its inner face. Stamens hypogynous. Style cleft into 

 2—4 filiform divisions ; ovary 1-celled. Capsule invested by the 

 persistent calyx ; the few or several seeds attached to the margins of 

 the 2 — 4 valves. 



1. F. graiidifolia, Ch. & Schl. Linnaea, i. 35 (1826) ; Torr, Bot. Mex, 

 Bound. 36. t. 5. Somewhat woody at base, erect, much branched and 

 slender, % 1 ft. high, glabroiis or soft-pubescent, very leafy : leaves 

 obovate to narrowly oblanceolate, revolute, ^ — % ™- long, of a dull 

 green : calyx linear, }^ in. long, strongly furrowed, the lobes short, acute : 

 petals small, red, the blade 1 line long or more, erose at summit, the 

 appendage of the claw bifid : stamens 4—7 : style 3-cleft : capsule shorter 

 than the calyx, linear, angular : seeds numerous.— A homely plant of the 

 salt marshes along the seaboard, and subsaline moist plains of the 

 interior ; glistening with a briny dew in a moist atmosphere, more or 

 less incrusted with salt when the air is dry. Flowering all summer. 



Order XX. CARYOPHYLLE>€. 



Linnoeus, Philosophia Botanica, 31 (1751). 

 Herbs or suffrutescent plants with inert watery juice, mostly opposite 

 leaves and s-wollen nodes. Inflorescence usually dichotomous. Flowers. 



