Samolus. | PRIMULACE2. 429 
opposite to them, sometimes alternating with staminodia, inserted 
in the tube or at the base of the corolla; anthers 2-celled, introrse. 
Ovary superior (inferior in Samolus), 1-celled ; style short or long, 
stigma usually capitate; ovules 2 or more, attached to a free 
central placenta. Fruit a 1-celled capsule, 2-6-valved or dehiscing 
transversely. Seeds 2 to many, minute, angular; albumen fleshy 
or horny ; embryo small, transverse. 
A small order, comprising 20 genera and 250 species; widely spread, but 
most plentiful on the mountains of the north temperate zone, rare in the tropics, 
the southern species comparatively few. The properties of the order are 
insignificant ; but it includes many well-known garden-plants, as the primrose, 
oxlip, auricula, Chinese primrose, cyclamen, &c. The sole New Zealand genus 
is best represented in the Southern Hemisphere, but one of the species is 
almost cosmopolitan. 
1. SAMOLUS, Tourn. 
Annual or perennial herbs. Leaves alternate. Flowers white, 
in terminal racemes or corymbs. Calyx half-superior, 5-fid, per- 
sistent. Corolla perigynous, subcampanulate ; tube short; limb 
5-lobed or -partite. Stamens 56, affixed to the corolla-tube, alter- 
nating with as many staminodes; filaments very short. Ovary 
globose, adnate to the calyx-tube, the tip free; style short; ovules 
numerous, anatropous. Capsule globose or ovoid, half-inferior, the 
iree part 5-valved, many-seeded. Seeds minute, orbicular or 
angled ; embryo transverse; hilum basilar. 
Species 8, one of them almost cosmopolitan, most of the rest inhabiting 
various parts of the Southern Hemisphere. 
1. S. repens, Pers. Syn. i.171.—A glabrous perennial herb; stems 
4-12 in. long, erect, ascending, or prostrate from a tufted rootstock, 
often emitting creeping and rooting stolons from the base. Leaves 
fleshy, yery variable in size and shape, ~-lin. long, obovate or 
linear-obovate to linear-spathulate or linear, the lower ones usually 
broader and petiolate, the upper smaller and narrower and often 
sessile. Flowers about +in. diam., axillary or in few-flowered 
terminal racemes ; pedicels longer than the leaves. Calyx-tube 
adnate to about the middle of the ovary, lobes acute. Corolla 
broad, the tube usually about as long as the calyx-lobes. Capsule 
broadly ovoid, 4-1 in. diam.—F’. Muell. Veg. Chath. Is. 34; Benth. 
Fl. Austral. iv. 271. S. littoralis, R. Br. Prodr. 428; A. Rich. FI. 
Nouv. Zel. 185; A. Cunn. Precur. n. 872; Raoul, Choix, 44; Hook. 
f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 207; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 185. Sheffieldia repens, 
Forst. Char. Gen. 18; Prodr. n. 67. 
KmrMapec Istanps, NortH AND SoutH IsLANDs, STEWART ISLAND, 
CuHatHAmM Isnanps, AUCKLAND Is~ANDS: Common along the coast, in salt 
marshes and on rocks. November—January. Also in Australia and Tas- 
mania and New Caledonia. 
