650 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: BOTANY. 



Family 85. PRIMULACE^:. Primrose Family. 



Herbs, with regular, usually sympetalous, 5-merous, inferior flowers, 

 having mostly epipetalous stamens, as many as the corolline divisions and 

 opposite them (sometimes also with an outer alternate series of staminal 

 rudiments). Ovary superior (half-inferior in Samolus], i-celled and i- 

 styled ; with free-central placenta. Seeds numerous, with endosperm. 



Species 350, in the Northern Hemisphere ; and a few in S. Africa, and 

 S. Amer. 



KEY TO THE GENERA. 

 A. Ovary superior ; no staminal rudiments. 



b. Corolla-tubes imbricating. Flowers often in involucrate umbels. 



c\. Corolla-tube exceeding the calyx ; style slender. I. Primula, p. 650. 



c2. Corolla minute ; style short. 2. Androsace, p. 651. 



b2. Corolla minute ; its lobes contorted. Small plants ; leaves mostly opposite. 



c\. Fruit opening by valves. Corolla 5-lobed. 5. Asterolinum, p. 653. 



c2. Fruit circumscissile. Corolla 4~5-lobed. 6. Anagallis, p. 653. 



3. Corolla exceeding the calyx, 5-6-partite. 4. Lysimachia, p. 652. 



A2. Ovary half-way adnate to calyx. Staminal rudiment mostly between the stamens. Style 

 short. 3. Samolus, p. 652. 



i. PRIMULA Linn. Primrose. 



Scapose herbs, with basal leaves, and funnel- or salver-form corolla, its 

 tube exceeding the calyx. Stamens 5, included. Ovary superior, glo- 

 bose or ovoid. Style slender ; stigma capitate. Seeds numerous, peltate. 

 Capsule 5-valved at summit. 



Species 150, mostly N. Temperate; a few in Java and Magellan. 



i. P. FARINOSA Linn. 



Leaves spatulate or oblong, 3-10 cm. long, tapering to a petiole, crenu- 

 late, greenish above, white-mealy beneath. Scape much exceeding the 

 leaves, bearing an umbel of pink or lilac, or whitish flowers, with an in- 

 volucre of minute acute bracts. (Eurasia and Greenland to Canada.) 



P. FARINOSA MAGELLANICA (Lehm.) Hook. f. (P. magellanka Lehm.) 



More robust and its leaves more deeply toothed than in the arctic and 

 European species. Leaves venous, ovate-lanceolate or rhomboid, gla- 

 brous, crenate, subobtuse, mealy below. Sepals lanceolate, subobtuse, 

 glandular-ciliate. Flowers white. 



