LYIII, ONAGRARIACE^ 



I. (ENOTHERA SERIES. 



This family owes its name to Onagra (fig. 427-429), the best 

 known species among us of the genus Oenothera} Its flowers are 

 regular and hermaphrodite. The receptacle has the form of a very 

 long gourd, the bottom of which envelopes the ovary, quite inferior, 

 and is prolonged upwards in a very long and narrow tubular neck, 

 dilated above and bearing on the margin of its orifice the perianth 

 and androecium. It is throughout lined with a disk, a thin glandular 

 layer, covered with hairs, a little thickened near its opening and 

 especially immediately above the summit of the ovary. The calyx 

 is formed of four sepals,^ two lateral, an anterior and a posterior, 

 valvate in prefloration. With them alternate four petals, sessile, and 

 contorted in the bud. The androecium is composed of eight stamens 

 inserted close to the corolla and forming two verticils. Four are 

 superposed to the sepals and four, a little shorter, to the petals. The 

 filament is free and the anther versatile, bilocular, introrse, dehiscing 

 by two longitudinal clefts,^ The ovary, inferior, has four oppositi- 

 petalous cells, and is surmounted by a long slender style, the stigma- 

 tiferous extremity of which is divided into four large conical lobes. 

 In the internal angle of each cell is a longitudinal placenta, charged 

 with anatropous ovules, obliquely ascending, with micropyle turned 



1 L. Gen. n. 469.— J. Gen. 319. — Lamk. III. t. raxia Nutt. Xylopleurum Spach). 



279. — Pom. Diet. iv. 550 ; Suppl. iv. 141. — DC. 2 jyi. Duchartue {Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 3, xviii, 



Prodr. iii. 45. — Spach, Suit, a Buffon, iv. 353; 339) erroneously considers the calyx of ffiMo^^era 



N. Ann. Mus. iv. (1835) 341. — Endl. Gen. n. maveolens as gamosepalous. Its parts are, on 



6115. — B. 'H.Gen. 789, n. 8.— H. Bn. layer Fam. the contrary, free at every age. 



Nat. 376. — Onagra T. Inst. 302, t. 156. — Adans. ^ The pollen, in this series, presents very re- 



Fam. des PL ii. 85 (incl. : Agassizia Spach, Ano- markable peculiarities. It is " flattened, trian- 



gra Spach, Baumannia Spach, Blennoderma gular with papillae on the angles ; transparent 



Spach, Boisduvalia Spach, Calylophus Spach, or opaque; external membrane punctuate, united 



Chamissonia Link, Chylisma Spach, Cratericar- on the papillae " (H. Mohl, Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 2, 



pium Spach, Godetia Spach, Hartmannia Spach, iii. 332). The same author distinguishes, by the 



Holostigma Spach, Kneiffia Spach, lavauxia largeness of the papillae, that of (Enothera., 



Spach, Megapterium Spach, Meriolix Eafin. Clarhia^ Circcea, whilst the papillae are small in 



Paehylnphus Spach, Sphcerostigma Endl. Ta- Lopezia and Fuchsia, 



