280 



THE FUCHSIA FAMILY. 



Ctrcesa the sepals, petals, and stamens are reduced to two each. Few 

 families offer readier or prettier examples of the adhesion of the calyx 

 to the exterior surface of the ovary, whereby the flower is lifted, in 

 effect, on to the summit of that organ . This is remarkably conspicuous 

 in the fuchsia. There are about thirty known genera, and upwards 

 of four hundred and fifty species. Thirteen grow wild, or as colonists, 

 in Great Britain, eight of them being found wild near Manchester, and 

 six of the eight belonging to the pretty genus Epilohium. The latter 

 are immediately distinguished from all our other wild-flowers by their 

 lanceolate and serrate leaves, four-petaled pink or lilac blossoms. 



Fig. 156. 

 Enchanters' -wort. 



seated on the summit of a long and slender ovary, which looks like a 

 peduncle. When ripe, the capsule opens from the top downwards into 

 four long and narrow valves, curling outwards, and liberating numerous 

 little white-winged seeds, that hang about it for some time. The two 

 Circceas are equally well-marked by their elegant little racemes of 

 pinkish-white flowers, the peduncles horizontal while the plant is in 

 bloom, but subsequently bent downwards, and tipped with a roundish 

 seed-pod, rough over its whole surface with hooked bristles. 



