166 THE ICE-PLANT AND THE SCLERANTHUS FAMILIES. 



GBOUP II. — OVARY FREE AND ENCLOSED ; STAMENS ON THE PERIANTH. 



XLIV.— THE ICE-PLANT FAMILY. FicoidecB or Mesemhrydcece . 



Small herbaceous plants, frequently procumbent, and remarkable 

 for their extreme succulence and the singular forms of their leaves, 

 which, being distended with fluid, often assume solid geometrical 

 figures, and resemble lumps of green pulp. The petals are long, 

 numerous, very slender, and generally of some vivid colour, as crimson 

 or yellow, giving the flowers much the aspect of those of Composites, 

 with which, however, being simple, they have no actual affinity. 

 Their relationship is completest with the Cactus Family, but from 

 these the perigynous stamens keep them distinct ; and with no other, 

 unless the CrassulacecB, where succulent leaves also prevail to a great 

 extent, is it possible to confound them. The latter are distinguished 

 by the stamens being placed upon the receptacle, and the petals rarely 

 exceeding five. The Ficoidea: are further remarkable for the extreme 

 sensitiveness of their blossoms to atmospheric changes. 



The hot sandy plains of the Cape of Good Hope furnish the chief 

 part of this eccentric family, a few being found also in the precincts of 

 the Mediterranean and elsewhere. They are known in England only as 

 inmates of the green-house, except the half-hardy ice-plant, or Mesem- 

 brydnthemum crystallhmm, so beautiful in the glittering watery beads 

 with which its entire surface is besprinkled. A large number of the 

 species are figured in an expensive work at the Free Library, — 

 DecandoUe and Redoute's " Plantarum Succulentarum His tor ia," 

 2 vols, folio. 



XLV.— THE SCLERANTHUS FAMILY. Sderanthdcem. 



A family of about a dozen insignificant little weeds, with minute, 

 pentamerous green flowers, consisting only of calyx, and narrow, 

 opposite leaves connected at the base. Two species grow wild in 

 England, one of them being found near Manchester, — the Sclerdnthus 

 dnnuus, a much-branched glabrous little plant, two to three inches 

 high, immediately known by the family characters above given, and 

 from any possible forms of pcarlwort or spurrcy, by its one-seeded 

 ovary, that of the latter plants being many-seeded. 



