256 FICOIDE^. 



Ordek XIX. FICOIDE^. 



By B. L. Robinson. 



Herbs of annual or perennial duration, often succulent, rarely lignescent, with 

 watery juice and simple entire or serrulate mostly opposite or pseudoverticillate 

 leaves. Flowers regular, perfect, polygamous, or unisexual. Calyx 4-5-cleft or 

 4-5-sepalous, free or more or less adnate to the ovary. Petals in N. American 

 genera wanting except in Mesembryanthemum (where narrow, numerous, and in- 

 serted upon the calyx). Stamens as many as the divisions of the calyx, or fewer, 

 or indefinitely numerous and then inclining to be grouped in phalanges, hypogy- 

 nous or distinctly perigynous ; bilocular anthers short-oblong. Ovary free, half 

 adnate to the calyx, or wholly inferior, 1-x-locuIar ; styles or free stigmas as 

 many as the cells of the ovary, stigmatose along the inner surface. Fruit a 

 loculicidal or circumscissile capsule, or rarely indehiscent and baccate or nutlike. 

 Seeds 1 to x, with sparing or copious albumen and curved peripheral embryo. 



With the exception of the large and chiefly S. African genus Mesembryanthe- 

 mum (including about 300 species, many of which are known in horticulture), 

 this loosely bound and poorly defined order is composed of small and unimportant 

 genera. Its members, however, possess much classificatory interest, since they 

 exhibit afliinities with the Caryophyllacece and Paronychiacece on the one hand, 

 and the Portulacacece and Cactacece on the other, thus serving to connect these 

 important orders. 



Tribe I. MOLLUGINE^E. Calyx free, divided nearly or quite to the base. 

 Petals (in ours) none. Stamens mostly hypogynous. Fruit (in ours) a loculici- 

 dal capsule. 



1. MOLLUGO. Sepals 5, elliptic, concave, obtuse, 1-3-nerved, with thin margins. Stamens 

 3 to 5 (rarely in foreign species more numerous), hypogynous, when 5 alternate with the 

 sepals, and when 3 alternate with the carpels. Ovary 3-celled, many -seeded ; styles filiform, 

 short, distinct to the base. Capsule ovoid, thin-walled, rounded at the summit ; seeds 

 estrophiolate, borne on short straight funiculi ; these remaining fixed to the placenta. 



2. GLINUS. Flowers mostly short-peduncled and aggregated in rather dense verticillasters 

 about the upper nodes. Stamens 5 to 10 (rarely more numerous). Seeds with distinct 

 strophiole at the hilum ; funiculi very long and slender, coiled about the seeds and in great 

 part deciduous with them. ( )ther characters as in the preceding. 



Tribe II. AIZOIDE/E. Calyx free, with a distinct turbinate, campanulate, or 

 subcylindric tube, and 4-5-cleft limb. Petals none. Fruit (in ours) a circumscis- 

 sile capsule. Leaves (in ours) opposite, mostly unequal. 

 * Ovary 1-2-ceIled : stipules present. 



3. CYPSELEA. Calyx-tube short, campanulate ; segments 4 to 5, unequal, ovate, obtuse, 

 erect, green, una]>pendaged. Stamens 1 to 3, alternate with the calyx-lobes. Ovary ovoid 

 or subglobose, 1-celled, many-ovuled ; short erect style 2-cleft. Seeds minute, smoothish, 

 estrophiolate ; slender straight funiculi remaining attached to the free central placenta. 

 Leaves opposite ; stipules scarious, laciniate. 



4. TRIANTHEMA. Calyx-lobes .5, concave, colored within, with dorsal horn-like appen- 

 dage from beneath the apex. Stamens varying from 5 or 6 to 10, alternate with the lobes 

 of the calyx when of the same number. Ovary truncate, 1-2-celled ; styles or stigmas 



