THE POLYPETALOUS ORDERS. 



417 



nor furnished with stipules. Flowers usually showy, tetramerous. 

 Calyx adherent to the ovary, and usually produced beyond it into 

 a tube. Petals usually four (rarely three or six, occasionally ab- 

 sent), and the stamens as many, or twice as many, inserted into 

 the throat of the calyx. Ovary commonly four-celled : styles 

 united ; the stigmas four, or united into one. Fruit mostly cap- 

 sular. Ex. Chiefly an American order ; many are ornamental 

 in cultivation. Fuchsia, remarkable for its colored calyx and ber- 

 ried fruit; CEnothera (Evening Primrose) ; Epilobium, where the 

 seeds bear a coma ; Gaura, where the petals are often irregular ; 

 Ludwigia, which is sometimes apetalous ; and Circsea, where the 

 lobes of the calyx, petals, stamens, cells of the ovary, and the 

 seeds, are reduced to two ; showing a connection with the appended 



786. Subord, Halorageae, which are a sort of reduced aquatic 

 Onagraceae, often apetalous : the solitary seeds furnished with a 

 little albumen, as in Myriophyllum (Water-Milfoil) and Hippuris 

 (Horse-tail), where the limb of the calyx is almost wanting; the 

 petals none ; the stamens reduced to a single one, and the ovary to 

 a single cell, with a solitary seed. 



FIG. 698. Flower of CEnothera fruticosa. 699. The same, about the natural size, with the 

 petals removed. 700. Magnified grains of pollen, with some of the intermixed cellular threads. 

 701. Cross-section of the four-lobed and four-celled capsule. 



FIG. 702. Hippuris vulparis (suborder Halorageae). 703. Magnified flower, with the sub- 

 tending leaf. 704. Vertical section of the ovary. 705. Vertical section of the fruit and seed. 



