39g A FLORA OF MANILA 
95. BEGONACEAE' (BEGONIA or LINGAT FAMILY) 
Succulent, creeping, climbing, or erect herbs or undershrubs, the stem 
often reduced to a root-stock. Leaves alternate, entire, toothed, or lobed, 
usually very unequal-sided. Inflorescence axillary, cymose, usually dichoto- 
mous, rarely fascicled. Flowers white or pink, monoecious, small or large. 
Male flowers: Perianth of 2 outer, opposite segments, and 2 inner smaller 
ones or these wanting; stamens usually many, the filaments free or more — 
or less united; anthers narrowly obovate. Female flowers: Perianth of 
2 to 5 segments. Ovary inferior, 2- to 4-celled; styles 2 to 4, free or united 
below, the stigmas branched or twisted; ovules very numerous. Fruit a 
usually winged, angular, thin-walled, capsule, variously dehiscent or irreg- 
ularly breaking up. Seeds very small, numerous. 
Genera about 5, species about 500 in most moist tropical countries, 1 
genus in the Philippines. 
1. BEGONIA Linnaeus 
Characters of the Family. (In honor of M. Begoén, a French promoter 
of science.) 
Species nearly 500, in most tropical countries, about 60 in the Philippines. 
1. B. nigritarum Steud. (B. rhombicarpa A. DC.). Lingat, Pingol-bato 
(Tag.). 
Root-stock creeping, with numerous brown stipules and scattered brown 
hairs. Leaves obliquely ovate, acute or acuminate, irregularly angularly 
or undulately lobed or coarsely toothed, long-petioled, base cordate, fleshy 
when fresh and with a distinct acid taste, thin when dry, often purplish 
beneath, green or somewhat mottled above, slightly hairy, at least on the 
margins, 2.5 to 10 long. Scapes erect, equaling or longer than the leaves, 
dichotomous, few-flowered. Flowers pink or nearly white, 12 to 14 mm 
in diameter, male and female flowers with 4 perianth-segments. Capsule 
subequally broadly rhombic-ovoid, including the wings, triangular, 5 to 8 
mm long, 3-winged, the wings subacute. (FI. Filip. pl. 413.) 
Occasionally cultivated, Singalon, fl. all the year; widely distributed 
‘in the Philippines on damp cliffs, in ravines, etc. Endemic. 
In addition to the above a number of extra-Philippine garden forms 
and hybrids are cultivated in Manila, which have not been considered here. 
96. CACTACEAE (CAcTUS FAMILY) 
Fleshy, erect or climbing plants, with much-thickened, usually green 
stems, usually leafiess, supplied with few to many sharp spines which arise 
from small areolae. Stems various, in our genera cylindric, flattened, or 
triangular, jointed or continuous. Flowers usually large and showy, perfect, 
solitary. Calyx of few to many imbricate sepals. Petals numerous, in 
2 to many series. Stamens numerous, the filaments slender, sometimes 
cohering with the base of the petals. Ovary inferior, 1-celled; ovules 
numerous, parietal; styles simple. Fruit a fleshy, often spiny berry. Seeds 
numerous. 
Genera 20 or more, species over 1200, chiefly in the dryer parts of warm 
and tropical America, a few introduced in the Philippines. 
a , 

*For the Philippine representatives of this family, see Merrill, E. D., 
“The Philippine Species of Begonia.” Philip. Journ. Sci. 6 (1911) Bot. 
369-406. 
