ILLUSTRATIONS OF INDIAN BOTANY. 153 
events members of a class. Meisner adopts this last suggestion and combines them under his 
class Geranioidee. DeCandolle and Lindley, however remove Linea, the latter Botanist, on 
Lineae, brings together a very extensive and natural assemblage o plants, agreeing in more 
or less distinctly, possessing a gynobase, some it is true Jess evidently so than others, but in 
all distinguishable. In addition to its affinities with the Gyncbasic group Geraniaceae ap- 
proaches Malvaceae in its lobed stipulate leaves, monadelphous stamens, and convolute embryo: 
from Oxalideae it is separated by its beaked fruit, stipulate leaves, and absence of albumen 
which is present in Ovalideae, in habit, and some other points, it approaches mpelideae, 
Grocrapuicat Distripution. <A very extensively but unequally distributed order. In 
Europe several are found as well as in North America, but most abundant at the Cape of Good 
Hope. In Asia a few are found, Mr. Royle states that about 15 are natives of the Himalayas, 
one only has yet been found in the Indian Peninsula and Ceylon, and that confined to the ele- 
vated regions of the Neilgherries and Pulney mountains in the former; and in the latter to 
the most elevated portions of the Island. The Cape is remarkable for the number of its Gera- 
niums, or rather Pelargoniums, now so generally cultivated all over the world, and esteemed, not 
€s8, on account the richness of the colours of their flowers, than on account of the strong and 
peculiar fragrance of their leaves. 
_Propertizs ano Uses. Under this head I have nothing to offer, some of the species are 
astringent, and the root of one North American species has received, in allusion to this pro- 
perty, the name of Alum root. They have generally an aromatic or resinous flavour, 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE 59. 
1. Flowering branch of Geranium affine, natural 6. The same cut vertically. 
size, ri 
: 7. A frait near maturity. 
A flower. 8. The same, after the carpels have become detached 
3. The same, the petals removed to show the stamens from the Gynobase. 
d . * 9. A carpel opened, showing the position of the seed. 
4. Back and front view of the stamens. 10. A seed. 
Os Ovary detached. 11. The same dissected, showing the embryo tn situ. 
The same cut vertically, showing the two super- 12. Embryo removed—all more or less magnified. 
Posed ovules, but incorrectly represented ascending. . 
an 
XLII.—LINEA. 
portance, one species however, the common Lint or Flax plan 
great value in the arts, on account of the fineness and strength of the fibres of its bark, and 
the peculiar qualities of the oil of its seed. The stems and branches are round or irregularly 
angled, the leaves usually alternate, rarely opposite or verticelled, simple, entire, exstipulate, but 
Sometime furnished in place of stipules, with small glands at the base of the leaves. The 
flowers are bisexual, regular, pedicelled, forming terminal cymes, rarely solitary and sessile. 
