478 



ZYGOPHYLLACEjE. 



[Hypogynous Exogens. 



Order CLXXX. ZYGOPHYLLACE^.— Beancapers. 



Zygophylles, R. Brown in Flinders, (1814); DC. Prodr. 1 703. (1824); ;Adrien ale Jut,, Rutaetes, 67. 

 ^ ygop J ' (1825); Endl. Gen. ccliii.— Meliantheae, Endl. p. 1165. 



Diagnosis.-^? Exogens, with few-seeded finally apocarpous fruit, whose pericarp does 

 ITlamiaate, a dry inconspicuous torm, albuminous seeds, and opposite leaves 

 with stipules. 

 Herbaceous plants, shrubs, or trees, with a very hard wood, the branches often arti- 

 culated at the joints. Leaves opposite, with stipules, very seldom simple, usual y 



unequally pinnate, not dotted. Flowers solitary, or in 

 pairs or threes, white, blue, or red, often yellow, herma- 

 phrodite, regular. Calyx divided into 4 or 5 pieces, with 

 convolute aestivation. Petals unguiculate, alternate with 

 the segments of the calyx and a little longer, in aestivation, 

 which is imbricated, at first very short and scale-like, bta- 

 mens double the number of the petals, dilated at the base, 

 sometimes naked, usually placed on the back of a small scale, 

 hypogynous. Ovary simple, surrounded at the base with 

 glands or a short sinuous disk. More or less deeply 4- or 5- 

 furrowed, with 4 or 5-cells ; ovules in each cell 2 or more, 

 attached to the inner angle, pendulous, or occasionally erect ; 

 style simple, usually with 4 or 5 furrows ; stigma simple, or 

 with 4 or 5 lobes. Fruit capsular, rarely somewhat fleshy, 

 with 4 or 5 angles or wings, bursting by 4 or 5 valves bear- 

 ing the dissepiments in the middle, or into as many close 

 cells ; the sarcocarp not separable from the endocarp. Seeds 

 usually fewer than the ovules, either compressed and scabrous 

 when dry, or ovate and smooth, with a thin herbaceous 

 integument. Embryo green ; radicle superior ; cotyledons 

 foliaceous ; albumen in small quantity, whitish, between 

 horny and cartilaginous, in Tribulus wanting. 



These plants are remarkable in the Rutal Alliance for 



their opposite leaves and conspicuous stipules. With 



Quassiads they otherwise accord in the stamens springing 



from the back of a hypogynous scale. Adrien de Jussieu 



also observes that the petals are remarkable for their being, 



in an early state, minute and hidden by the calyx, which 



they only exceed about the time of flowering, while in other 



Rutal Orders the petals are always larger than the calyx. 



The distinguishing characters in the vegetation or habit ot 



this Order are not only the leaves being constantly opposite, 



with lateral or intermediate stipules, but also in their being 



generally compound, and always destitute of the pellucid 



glands which universally exist in true Rueworts tor this 



reason the genus Biebersteinia must be excluded, although 



its leaves have stipules. It is also a very common character of the Order to have the 



radicle at that extremity of the seed which is most remote from the hi um , but this, 



which is of great importance in many natural families, is of less value in Beancapers 



7see many food remarks upon this subject in Brown's Appendix to Denham, p 2,) 



An anTym g ous author expresses his opinion (Z,W« xv. 249.) that the true , affinity 



of this Order is with Oxalids, not Rueworts. He would not however keep them m the 



noi^hbourhood of Cranesbills, but thinks Mallowworts then- true relations. 



luaiacum; Poriieria, and'Larrea, are peculiar to America. Fagonia is drtnMri 

 overtl~h of Europe, the Levant, Persia, and India. ZygophyUum ^habits the 

 same re<dons, and also the south of Africa, and is represented in New Holland by 

 Sera " Tribulus occurs in all the Old World within the tropics, or in countries bar- 

 derin" „pon them. Melianthus, a most anomalous genus, is remarkable for being 

 tnndhoCJL Cape of Good Hope and in Nipal, without any intermediate station^ 

 tT abundance of Beancapers constitutes one of the most staking features of the 



vegetation of the Egyptian deserts. 



" Fig. CCCXXXlT-Ropera fabagifolia. 1. a flower ; 2. pistil ; X perpendicular section of it; 4. fruit; 

 5. section of a seed. 



Fig. CCCXXXI. 



