122 The Flowering Plants of Western India. 



" What should we do but sing his praise, 



Who does in the pomegranate close 



Jewels more rich than Ormus shows." A. Marvell. 



"As in Asia so in Greece, the tree and its fruit served as the 

 symbol of fructification and procreation, and again of death and 

 resurrection." Hehn. 



Browning called one of his collections of poems "Bells and pome- 

 granates" (in allusion to Ex. xxxix. 24 to 26), "to indicate an endea- 

 vour towards something like an alternation or mixture of music with 

 discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought. . . . Giotto 

 placed a pomegranate in the hands of Cante, and Baffaelle crowned 

 Theology with blossoms of the same." 



ORDER 53. ONAGRACE^E. 



Herbs, calyx tubular of 2 to 6 valvate lobes, united to the 

 inferor ovary ; petals 2 to 6 inserted on the calyx, stamens 

 as many or double, similarly inserted ; fruit a capsule or 

 berry. 



This not a large order, but contains some well-known and beauti- 

 ful flowers, both wild and cultivated, as the fuchsias, the evening 

 primroses (^Enothera), and the willow herbs (Bpilobium). The most 

 noticeable feature in plants of this order is the very inferior ovary, 

 which is well below the calyx, and in many cases looks like a flower 

 stalk much swollen in the upper half. Most of the species grow in 

 water, or in moist situations. 



1. Jussi-EA. Marsh plants with alternate undivided leaves 

 and solitary flowers, stamens double the petals, style short, 

 stigma 4 or 5-lobed, capsule 4 or 5-celled, many-seeded. 



2. LUDWIGIA. Leaves alternate undivided, stamens as many 

 as the petals, capsule linear or oblong, many-seeded. 



3. TRAPA. Floating herbs, calyx lobes 4 persistent, becoming 

 spiny on the fruit, petals and stamens 4, fruit bony, 4-angled, 

 beaked, one-seeded. 



1. JUSSLEA. 



1. J. repens. Floating and spreading in tanks, the stems 

 rooting at the joints, and bearing clusters of conspicuous white 

 fleshy vesicles, leaves smooth, obovate oblong, flowers very 

 pretty, erect, long-stalked, white with yellow base, calyx lobes 

 and petals 5, capsule cylindric, woody. 



Common on the edges of tanks, 



" Where rosy-winged flamingoes fish all day 



Stalking amid the lotus blossoms fair." J. Ingelow. 



