Statice.] Lxxvii. i'LUMBA(^iNEiE (oliver). 485 



Wile Iiand. Abyssinia, 12-12,000 ft., Schimpei' f 



DSozamb. Sistr. Kilima-njaro, last zone of vegetation, Neto .' (a variety with 

 the small corollas more abruptly dilated above and the slender style more exscrted.) 



Order LXXVII. PLUMBAGINE^. (By Prof. Oliver.) 



Flowers regular, hermaphrodite. Calyx inferior, gamosepalons, 

 tubular or infundibuliform, more or less distinctly 5-lobed. Corolla 

 hypogynous, gamopetalous, hypocrateriform or petals nearly or wholly 

 free, oblanceolate or obovate, imbricate. Stamens as many as and 

 opposite to corolla-lobes or petals, adnate to the tube or base of the 

 claw or inserted with the petals on a narrow hypogynous ring. Ovary 

 free, 1-celled, often 5-sulcate ; styles 5, free from the base or cotmate 

 more or less. Ovule solitary, anatropous, suspended from a long basal 

 funiculus. Fruit dry, dehiscent or indehiscent ; seed with or without 

 albumen; embryo straight. — Herbs or shrubs, often maritime, with 

 cauline alternate or radical rosulate leaves. Flowers capitate or spicate, 

 spikes solitary or panicled. 



An order chiefly affecting the seashore or saline regions, most numerous in species 

 in the Mediterranean region and West Asia. 



Maritime herbs. Calyx dilated above and hyaline. Styles free 



or nearly so 1 . Statice. 



Herbs or scandent and shrubby. Calyx tubular, glandular. 



Styles connate below 2. Plumbago. 



Shrub. Calyx tubular, eglandular. Styles connate below . . 3. Ceratostigma. 



1. STATICE, Linn. ; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. PI. ii. p. 625. 



Calyx funnel-shaped ; limb plicate, hyaline or scarious, 5-toothed or 

 lobed in our species. Petals 5, either free from the base or the base of 

 the claw connate in a narrow ring, oblanceolate or obcaudate. Stamens 

 adnate to base of the petals. Styles free from the base or nearly so. 

 Utricle indehiscent, or circumsciss or variously fissured. — Usually 

 perennial herbs from a woody or wiry stock, or more or less shrubby 

 and diffusely branched. Leaves alternate, often rosulate or fascicled, 

 linear- spathulate to obovate and entire or nearly so in our species, in 

 others often sinuate or pinnatifid. Flowers in unilateral bracteate 

 panicled spikes. 



A large maritime genus chiefly of the northern hemisphere. But one of the fol- 

 lowing species is peculiar to our Flora. 



1. S. tuberculata, Boiss. in DC. Frod. xii. 662. Radical leaves 

 wanting in our specimens. Scape glabrous, about 6 in. high together 

 with all its branches and the peduncles closely covered with lax 

 tubercles, the larger of which are depressed and f oraminatc, moi e or 

 less zigzag, with widely divergent or recurved branches from below 

 the middle ; lower branchlets sterile. Spikelets 1-flowered, clustered 

 in short dense subscorpioid spikes collected in distichous pyramidal 

 panicles ; inner bract 2-3 times longer than the outer, closely investing 



