ENGLISH BOTANY. 



OUDER VII.— C I S T A C E JE. 



Small shrubs or underslirubs, rarely annual herbs, T\'itli the 

 leaves generally opposite, entire, often furnished with small leaf- 

 like stipules. Flowers nearly regular, white, yellow, rose, or purple, 

 in terminal secund false-racemes or solitary, more rarely in terminal 

 umbels. Calyx persistent, of 5 imbricated sepals ; the two outer 

 ones generally smaller than the others and sometimes suppressed ; 

 the three inner ones commonly convolute in testivation. Corolla 

 generally with 5 spreading very fugaceous petals, with scarcely any 

 claws, crumjiled, and convolute in a contrary direction to that of 

 the sepals. Stamens indefinite, hypogynous ; filaments free, thread- 

 like ; anthers 2-celled, introrse, dehiscing longitudinally. Carpels 

 3 to 5, completely united into a 1-celled free compound ovary, 

 with the placentae parietal or on the imperfect septa which some- 

 times project into the interior of the ovary. Style simply filiform, 

 sometimes very short. Ovules generally indefinite, orthotropous, 

 very rarely semi-anatropous. Fruit capsular, generally crustaceous, 

 1-celled, but sometimes with as many imperfect partitions projecting 

 inwards as there arc carpels ; dehiscence loculicidal, dividing often 

 quite to the base into as many valves as there are carpels. Seeds 

 numerous, with a hard seed-coat and a little farinaceous albumen. 

 Embryo once or twice bent or spiral, rarely nearly straight ; radicle 

 directed to a point opposite the hilum, except in the few species in 

 which the funiculus is more or less adherent. 



GBNUS I.—R ELIANTHEMUM. Fers. 



Sepals 5, the two exterior smaller. Petals 5, equal. Stamens 

 numerous, hypogynous, all fertile, or the exterior ones sterile. 

 Ovaries with 3 placenta?. Capsule 3-valved. Embryo bent, or more 

 rarely coiled. 



Small shrubs or undershrubs, generaUy difl'usely branched and 

 decumbent, more rarely erect annuals. Elowers rather small, 

 yellow or white in the British species, and disposed in terminal 

 secund racemes. 



The generic name is derived from i'iXioq {helios), tlie sun, and niOoc {anthos), a 

 flower, because tlie petals open with the rising of the sun in the morning, and tliey fall 

 olT when the sun sets in the evening. The flowers oulv lu.st for a few hours when the 



