THYM EL JE A CE JE. 



113 



Fig. 86. Floriferous branch. 



form of an elongate tube and presents a transverse articulation 



constricted above the ovary. The latter is surrounded by a thin 



annular disk, and becomes a dry fruit surrounded by the inferior 



portion of the perianth. Diarthron comprises slender herbs from central 



Asia ; the leaves are alternate, linear, and the flowers form elongated 



and slender spikes, destitute of bracts. Passerma (fig. 86) has also 



tetramerous flowers, with hypo- 



crateriform calyx ; the ovary is Pasmrma Hrsuta. 



without a disk, and the two 



staminal verticils are sufficiently 



near to appear a single verticil. 



The fruit is dry or more rarely 



fleshy, as in P. empetroides, of 



which has been made a genus 



C/iymococca, but which, like its 



congeners, is a Cape plant, eri- 



coid, tomentose, with linear opposite leaves, and flowers solitary 



or collected in short spikes or terminal capitules. 



The andrœcium is rarely isostemonons in this series, and there 

 are only four genera therefore constituting the subseries Striithioleœ. 



Strutkiola and Kclleria have in fact only four stamens, alternate with 



the divisions of the perianth; but the throat of the latter bears 



four simple or unsheathed scales, superposed to the divisions 



(Eustruthiolece). In Drapetes, 



on the contrary, the scales PimUa ugmtnna. 



disappear (Brapctcœ), all the 



other characters remaining 



those of Kclleria. Strutkiola 



consists of Cape shrubs or 



unclershrubs, ericoid and with 



leaves almost always alternate. 



Kclleria and Drapetes are 



humble subshrubby and caes- 



pitose, musciform plants, 



with sessile and imbricate 



leaves. The former are 



Oceanic; the latter inhabit 



the mainland and principal Fig. 87. Flower (*). Fig. 88. 



islands of the 



VOL. VI. 



Magellanic 



Long. sect, of 

 flower. 



