CISTACB2E. 



33:: 



Helianthemum lasiocarpum. 



Halimium? which consists of species, some allied to the Helianthe- 

 mums and others to the Cistus, and which are a connecting- link 

 between the two genera, the embryo is often disposed like that of 

 the latter, although the gynaeceum is formed of three carpels. The 

 Helianthemum s are herbaceous or suffrutescent plants, with opposite 

 or alternate leaves, stipulate or exstipu- 

 late,' 2 inhabiting Europe, the Mediter- 

 ranean region and Western Asia, the 

 Isles of the Western Coast of Africa, and 

 the two Americas. Some have described 

 more than a hundred species f others have 

 reduced this number to about a quarter. 4 

 They have been divided into seven or 

 eight genera, 5 five of which we preserve as 

 subgenera or sections. The flowers are 



generally yellow or white, or more rarely pink. In three or four 

 species, H. canadense, corymbosum, and glomeratum? the Bowers are of 

 two sorts, some polyandrous, and others triandrous or apelatous. In 

 H. glomeratum all the flowers are apelatous and oligandrous ; it has 

 been proposed to make a genus of it, Tmnioslema? the name being 

 derived from the stamens, 8 and which would serve to connect Heli- 

 anthemum proper to the other two generically lessened types which 

 follow. 



Hudsonia and Lechea may be considered as reduced types of the 



Fig. 347, 

 Seed (f). 



Fig. 348, 



Loner, sect, of seed , 



1 Helianthemi sect. Dun., in DC, Prodr., \. 

 267. — Gen. Halimium Spach, loc. cit., 365 

 (incl. : H. lasianthum, algarvense, umbellatum, 

 Cistus Libanotis, rosmarinifolius). 



2 Clos considered the two exterior sepals of 

 Helianthemum as being of the nature of stipules. 

 In Helianthemum the want of alternation 

 between the pieces of the corolla and calyx is 

 generally more pronounced than in the Cistuses. 

 Payeb (Organog., 16) assigns the following 

 position to the petals : — " One before sepal 4, 

 and two before each sepal 3 and 5. In con- 

 sidering the side of the flower superposed to the 

 last bract as anterior, there are then four 

 anterior petals superposed in pairs to two sepals, 

 3 and 5, and one posterior petal superposed to 

 sepal 4." 



3 Dun., loc. cit., 266. 



4 Spach only admits twenty-seven. — 

 Reichb., lc. Fl. Germ., iii. t. 25-35. — Webb, 

 Phyt. Canar., t. 12 B, 13, 13 B.— BoiSS., Fl. 

 Or., i. 439.— Gben. & Godb., Fl. de Fr„ i. 

 167.— C. Gay, Fl. Chil., i. 202.— A. Gbay, 



Man., ed. 5, 80.— Champ., Fl. S. Unit. St., 35. 

 — Walp., Rep., i. 208 ; v. 58 b ; Ann., i. 64 ; 

 ii. 63 j iv. 231; vii. 205. 



5 Especially Enhelianihemum, which is dis- 

 tinguished by an orthoplocate embryo, Tu- 

 beraria Dun. (H. guttatum), and Rhodax, 

 Spach, which have one, a circumflex embryo, 

 the other diplecolobed. 



6 Type of the genus Heteremeris, Spach, loc. 

 cit., 270. 



7 Spach, loc. cit., 374. 



8 They have a linear spathulate filament and a 

 suborbicular adnate very small anther. In 

 Fumana section of the genus Helianthemum 

 (Dun., loc. cit., 274), of which a distinct genus 

 has also been made (Spach, loc. cit., 359, t. 16j 

 — Enul., Gen., n. 5027), the exterior stamens 

 are sterile and moniliform. The ovules are not 

 orthotropous, but incompletely anatropous, as 

 in some other species of the group. (" Nobis 

 erit subgen. Helianthemi," B. H., loc. cit., 

 114.) 



