Chapter XXI. 



Order XXI.— C0KIARIE(E. The Hide-tanning Family, 



Chakacter of the Oeder. — Sarmentose, glabrous, leafy 

 under shrubs, with angular branches. Leaves, opposite, or 

 rarely 3-nate, exstipulate, entire. Flowers, hermaphrodite, 

 solitary, or raeemed, axillary, regular. Sepals, 5, triangular- 

 ovate, imbricate, persistent. Petals, 5, hypogynous, triangular, 

 shorter than the sepals; after flowering becoming fleshy and 

 closely oppressed to the carpels. Stamens, 10, hypogynous, 

 all free, or 5 of them adaate to the petals ; filaments short ; 



anthers large, rough. Carpels, 5 or 10, wliorled round, and 

 adnate to a fleshy torus, 1-celled ; styles, 5 or 10, free, flexuose, 

 stigmatiferous all over; ovules, solitary, pendulous. Fruit, 

 5-8, small, indehiscent, compressed, oblong, crustaceous 

 achenes, keeled on the back and sides, enclosed in the fleshy 

 petals. Testa, membranous; albumen, thin; cotyledons, 

 plano-convex; radicle, very sliort, superior. — Haudhook of the 

 New Zealand Flora, p. 4(5. 



Description of the Order. — 



^lALL order of shrubs and herbs ; native of Southern Europe, the Himalayas, 

 the South American Andes, New Zealand and the Kermadec Islands. 

 The New Zealand species and their forms are all similar to those found in 

 the South American Andes. The fruit of the European species, Cor'mria 

 myrtifolia, is poisonous, and is said to have proved fatal to some Erench 

 soldiers in Catalonia. The leaves have also been used to adulterate Senna 

 — a dangerous fraud, as they are stated to have caused tetanic convul- 

 sions, and subsequent coma. The seeds of the New Zealand species, C. niscifolia, are 

 poisonous if eaten, and the young succulent foliage is deleterious and often fatal to cattle 

 if eaten in quantity. The name of the order is derived from the Latin word corium, a 

 hide, relating to some of the species being used for tanning and dyeing leather. 



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