TROPAEOLACEAE. 



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Family 2. TROPAEOLACEAE Lindl. 



Xasturtium Family. 



Herbs, spreading or climbing, with petioled, often peltate leaves, and 

 large, irregular perfect flowers, mostly solitary, axillary and peduncled. 

 Calyx produced posteriorly into a spur, 5-lobed. Petals normally 5, the 

 upper more or less unlike the lower. Stamens 8, declined, unequal; fila- 

 ments distinct. Ovary 3-celled, 3-lobed; style filiform. Ovules solitar\' 

 in each ovary cavity, pendulous. Carpels indehiscent, fleshy, at length 

 separating. Seeds without endosperm. Only the following genus, inter- 

 esting and peculiar in the structure of its flowers. 



1. TEOPAEOLUM L. 



About 40 species, natives of Central and South America, the following 

 typical one widely cultivated. [Greek, turning, or change.] 



1. Tropaeolum majus L. Gaedex 

 Nasturtium. (Fig. 214.) Annual, 

 succulent, glabrous; stems weak, spread- 

 ing, 1° long or more. Leaves long- 

 petioled, peltate below the middle, flac- 

 cid, nearly orbicular, lJ'-4' broad, radi- 

 ately veined, the margin slightly re- 

 pand; peduncles about as long as the 

 petioles; flowers l'-2^' broad, yellow to 

 orange; spur often 1' long; fruit 3- 

 lobed, depressed-globose, about *' broad. 



Commonly and highly successfully 

 grown in flower-gardens and occasionally 

 escaped into waste places. Native of Peru. 

 Flowers nearly throughout the year. The 

 fruits make good pickles, and the young 

 leaves are sometimes used in salads. 

 Both double-flowered and dwarf races are 

 in cultivation, and forms supposed to be of 

 hybrid origin exist. 



Family 3. BALSAMINACEAE Lindl. 

 Jewel-weed Family. 



Succulent herbs, with alternate thin simple dentate petioled leaves, and 

 showy mostly very irregular axillary flowers. Sepals 3, the 2 lateral ones 

 small, gTeen, nerved, the posterior one large, petaloid, saccate, sinirred. 

 Petals 5, or 3 with 2 of them 2-cleft into ^dissimilar lobes. Stamens 5, 

 short ; filaments appendaged by scales on their inner side and more or less 

 united ; anthers coherent or connivent. Ovarv^ oblong, 5-celled ; style short, 

 or none; stigma 5-toothed or 5-lobed; ovules several in each cavity. Fruit 

 in the following genus an oblong or linear capsule, elastically dehiscent 



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