THE BEGONIA. 133 



'Although De Candolle divides the genus into sections, yet he retains 

 the name Begonia for all. He considers the following characters as 

 essential, and, although his characters are not those of Klotzsch, the 

 final divisions are identical with those of the latter. 



1. The number of petals in the flower is of little importance in 

 the male, but more so in the female. 



2. The form of dehiscence of the anthers. 



3. The number of styles, when taken in connection with other char- 

 acters of the capsule. 



4. The persistence or non-persistence of the style. 



5. The form of the style and the stigmatic surfaces. 



6. The division of the placentae. 



7. The dehiscence of the capsule. 



PLACE IN THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



The genus Begonia has been referred to eighteen different families. 

 No other order seems to stand out so distinctly by itself without any 

 apparent affinity to other orders. Twenty different botanists who have 

 written the great systematic works, place the order Begoniaceae in fif- 

 teen different relationships. The majority of the earlier botanists have 

 placed the order near the Polygonaceae, some of the others placing it 

 near the Eupliorbiaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Onagraceae. Cactaceae, Um- 

 belliferae, and Saxifragaceae. 



The later botanists, however, Vines, Warming, . Engler, and 

 Prante, place the order near the Cucurbitaceae. It appears to the 

 writer, however, that the immediate relationship can not be found in 

 the now-existing flora. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



Begonias may be divided into thr.ee geographical divisions, Amer- 

 ican, Asiatic, and African. They are very much localized in their 

 habitats, in which they resemble orchids and are distributed in the 

 warmer and moister parts of the world, being found most abundant 

 in Mexico, Central and South America, the Himalaya Mountains, in 

 India, and a few in South Africa. The only species that are widely 

 distributed are B. scandens, which is found in Jamaica, Guiana, Peru, 

 and Costa Eica; and B. laciniata, which is found from the mountains 

 of Sikkim in the Himalayas to the islands of Hongkong. Their very 

 localized distribution is said to be due to the fact that the plants grow 

 mostly in warm, shady places, free from winds and other agencies for 

 distributing seeds. 



As the seeds of the begonia are very small and delicate, this, also, 

 may considerably restrict their distribution. 



