126 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



The number of Sea Heaths is not great, between 

 thirty and forty species, placed in four genera. 



The plants are perennial, sometimes annual. The 

 stems are herbaceous, or woody and wiry, and the 

 plants may be undershrubs or shrubby. The 

 branches are jointed. The leaves are small, opposite, 

 linear, with inrolled margins, with no stipules, with a 

 membranous sheathing base. 



The flowers are numerous, stalkless, in dichasial 

 cymes, in the upper axils. They are small, regular, 

 and hermaphrodite. 



The calyx is tubular, persistent, with four to six or 

 seven sepals, induplicate in bud. There are four to 

 five petals, with long claws and adnate scales between 

 the claw and the limb. They are hypogynous and 

 overlap in the bud. There are four or five stamens, 

 or six, in two whorls, slightly united at the base, and 

 alternating with the petals. There may be two or 

 three opposite the latter. The anthers are versatile. 

 There is no disc. The ovary is single, stalkless, one- 

 celled. There is one slender style, two- to four-cleft. 

 The stigma is two- to five-lobed. The capsule is one- 

 celled, loculicidal, opening by three to five valves, 

 enclosed in the persistent calyx. The seeds are 

 minute, attached to the edges or centre of the valves. 



The Sea Heath group agrees in habit with the 

 Pink or Stitchwort group, in having parietal pla- 

 centae, and is related to the St. John's Wort group in 

 the valvate calyx, definite stamens, and habit. It 

 has affinities with the Tamarisk group. 



