l60 ONAGRACE^. 



attached to it between the teeth. Anthers round. Fruit 

 a septicidal capsule showing when ripe very close and 

 fine horizontal striations. Wight. Ic. t. 258. 



On the margin of the lake at Kodaikanal, very abundant. 

 In damp places generally on the Kodaikanal and Ootacamund 

 downs. Fyso7i 1239, 2897. Boiirne ^Go^, 5210. 



Gen. Dist. India, Ceylon, Malacca, South China, B'orinosa, etc. 



ONAGRACE/E. 



Herbs with opposite or alternate undivided but toothed 

 leaves and mostly solitary flowers, characterised by the 

 inferior ovary of two or four cells : sepals and petals two 

 or four and stamens two, four, or eight. 



Species 300 to 400 all over the world but especially in the 

 north temperate zone. 



Common garden and wild European plants are fuchsta CLARKIA, 

 (ENOTHERA, EPILOBIUM (Willow herb), ciRC^A (Enchanter's Nightshade.) 



OENOTHERA. 



Evening Primrose, 

 Herbs with erect stems well clothed with alternate 

 simple but often much cut leaves. Flowers terminal, 

 solitary, often large; with very long calyx-tube continued 

 as a tube above the ovary in long sepals ; four very thin 

 petals, twisted in bud; eight stamens with long conspicu- 

 ous anthers; a four-celled ovary containing many seeds, 

 and four long narrow spreading stigmas (§ Ewoeno- 

 thera). Fruit a four-angled or four-winged capsule open- 

 ing by four valves. 



The extra-tropical species were monographed by S. Watson in 

 Contrib : Amer : Bot. L p. 573." As given in the Gen. Plant the genus 

 has over 100 species, nearly all in America, outside the tropics Jn science 

 the genus has become famous because of a theory of evolution which De 

 Vries founded mainly on the great variations in a species which has run 

 wild in Holland. These wz/^a^z^wx as he called them, were he considered 

 differences of sufficient importance to warrant the plants being considered 



