CARYOPHYLLACE.E. (PINK FAMILY.) 27 



ORDER 9. POLYGALACE^E. 



Herbs or shrubs, with simple entire exstipulate leaves, remarkable for the papilio- 

 liaceous-looking flowers. In our genus the ovary is 2-celled. 



1. POLY GALA, Tourn. 



Sepals 5, very unequal, the 2 lateral ones large and petal-like. Petals 3, united to 

 each other and to the stamen-tube, the middle one hooded and often crested or beaked. 

 Stamens 6 to 8, the filaments united below into a split sheath, adnate at the base to the 

 petals. The 2-celled ovary forms a capsule flattened contrary to the partition, notched 

 or retuse above. 



1. P. cucullata, Benth. Stems slender from a woody base, 2 to 8 inches high; leaves 

 Bmooth, oblong-lanceolate or ovate-elliptical, | to 1 inch long, short petioled; flowers 

 rose-color; outer sepals 2| lines long, rounded-saccate at the base; the wings broadly 

 ypatulate, 4 to 6 lines long. 



2. P. Californica, Nutt. Stouter; flowers greenish white. 



ORDER 10. CARYOPHYLLACE^I. 



Herbs with regular and mostly perfect flowers, persistent calyx, its parts and the petals 

 4 or 5 and imbricated or the latter sometimes convolute in the bud, the distinct stamens 

 commonly twice as many as the petals, ovary 1 -celled with a free central placenta. Stems 

 usually swollen at the nodes. Leaves opposite, often united at the base by a transverse 

 line, in one group with interposed scarious stipules. Styles 2 to 5, mostly distinct. 

 Fruit a capsule opening by valves, or by teeth at the summit. Flowers terminal, or in 

 the forks, or in cymes. 



Many species in this order are difficult to determine. 



* Sepals united into a 4c-5-toothed calyx. Petals long-clawed. 

 Petals with bifid appendages Silene. 1 



* * Sepals distinct; petals without claws. 



Petals bifid; capsule cylindric Cerastium. 2 



Petals bifid capsule globose Stellaria. 3 



Petals entire; capsule globose -. Arenaria. 4 



Stipules present; styles 5 Spergula. 5 



Stipules present; styles 3 Lepigonum. 6 



1. SILENE, L. 



Calyx tubular, cylindrical to campanulate, 5-toothed, 10-nerved. Petals 5, with nar- 



