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2. POLYGALA CHAM^EBUXUS. 



BOX-LEAVED MILKWORT. 



THIS genus contains plants of the woody, under shrubby, and 

 herbaceous perennial kinds. 



It belongs to the class and order Diadelphia Octandria, and ranks 

 in the natural order of Lomentacece. 



The characters are: that the calyx is a five-leaved, small perianth : 

 leaflets ovale, acute: two below the corolla, one above that, and 

 two in the middle, subovate, flat, very large, coloured, (the wings) 

 permanent: the corolla subpapilionaceous: standard almost cylin- 

 drical, tubular, short, Avith a small reflex mouth, bifid: wings; keel 

 concave, compressed, venlricose towards the tip: appendix of the 

 keel, in most of the species two three-parted pencil-shaped bodies, 

 fastened to the keel towards the lip: the stamina have diadelphous 

 filaments (eight connected) enclosed within the keel : anthers eight, 

 simple: tlie pistillurn is an oblong germ: style simple, erect: stigma 

 terminating, thickish, bifid: the pericarpium is an obcordatc capsule, 

 compressed with an acute margin, two-celled, two-valved: partition 

 contrary to the valves; opening at each margin: the seeds solitary, 

 ovale (with a glandular umbilicus). 



The species cultivated are: 1. P. mi/i-lifolia, Myrtle-leaved Milk- 

 wort; 2. P. Chamabuxus, Box-leaved Milk-wort. 



The first has a shrubby stem, covered with a smooth brown bark, 

 rising four or five feet high, and sending out several spreading 

 branches towards the top: the leaves about an inch long and a 

 quarter of an inch broad, lucid green, and sessile. The flowers are 

 produced at the ends of the branches; they are large, while on ihc 

 outside, but of a bright purple within: wings expanded wide, and 

 standard incurved. It continues flowering most part of the summer: 



