2 
= 
not exceed a height of 30 centimetres. Sometimes it may 
be a hemicryptophyte, but in its least protected form it is a 
chamaephyte with a low thick perennial epigeal base, which 
bears rather short green branches. These bear opposite 
subulate leaves with the axils woolly-haired, and with the 
basal part persisting through the winter. 
I have not seen the plant in flower. The fruit is said 
to be somewhat fleshy and wingless. 
As regards the assimilating, epidermal, and aqueous 
tissues, the structure of the leaf and stem is similar, both 
belonging to the centric type. A thin-walled hypoderm 
contains crystal-groups. (Fig. 57). 
The Chamaephytes described have the following char- 
acters in common: They are undershrubs with a perennial 
lignified and often thickened base, and with year-shoots the 
larger distal part of which dies before the next vegetative 
period. Nanophytum alone is a cushion-plant, or nearly so. 
With the exception of Capparis, they have all small 
leaves, and some of the Chenopodiaceae are practically leafless. 
In some species all or some of the leaves are shed during 
summer, and the stems assume the function of assimilating 
organs (Alhagi, Convolvulus). 
The structure of the leaves is isolateral except in Fran- 
kenia. The leaves of many species are coated with hairs, 
some have tracheids, others aqueous tissue. 
The year-shoots are almost always branched which is 
the rule for undershrubs (WARMING 1892). 
As already stated all the chamaephytes are late flowering. 
The structure of the fruit so far as I have observed, presents 
no general characteristic common to all. 
C. Hemicryptophytes. 
The majority of these (see chap. 12, p. 167) are spring- 
plants the aerial parts of which are dead during the warmest 
