Resedacea Reseda. 5 5 



1. RESEDA. 



The characters as above. There are several species occa- 

 sionally seen in cultivation, but none of them have much to 

 recommend them except the fragrant species. Name from 

 reseda, in allusion to its reputed medicinal qualities. There 

 are two native biennial species, J?. Luteo^a^ Weld, and R. lutea, 

 the former with entire, and the latter with lobed leaves. 



1. R. odorata, Mignonette. This favourite plant is too 

 well known to need description. It is believed to have origi- 

 nally come from Asia Minor or Egypt. As an out-door plant 

 it is annual with us, but in the south and grown under glass 

 it is perennial, though of short duration. There are several 

 improved varieties in cultivation. 



ORDER XII.- CISTINEJE. 



Dwarf, trailing, or erect shrubs with opposite or alternate 

 simple usually entire leaves with large or small or no stipules 

 and solitary or racemose showy ephemeral flowers. Flowers 

 regular. Sepals 3 to 5, imbricate, the two outer usually 

 smaller or absent. Petals 5, scarcely clawed, imbricate, spread- 

 ing, very thin and fugacious. Stamens many, hypogynous; 

 filaments free, filiform. Capsule 1-celled, or several-celled 

 in consequence of the projecting parietal placentas ; seeds 

 numerous, albuminous, orthotropous. Chiefly from the Medi- 

 terranean region ; a few dispersed throughout Europe, and a 

 few found in Nerth and South America, and Central and Eastern 

 Asia. 



1. HELIlNTHEMUM. 



Prostrate trailing herbaceous perennials or undershrubs. 

 Flowers usually racemose. Valves and placentas of the capsule 

 3. About thirty species are known. The name is derived 

 from r/Xfos-, the sun, and avOspov, a flower. Some species have 

 dimorphic flowers, similar to the violet. They are only suit- 

 able for rock-work. Besides H. vulgare there are three other 

 indigenous species : H. guttatum, an annual, flowers yellow 

 with a red eye ; H. canum and H. polifolium, trailing shrubby 

 species, the first with small yellow flowers, and the latter white. 



1. If. Algarvense, syn. H. ocymoides. This is an erect- 

 growing species about 2 feet high, more like a Cistus, to which 



