PAEONTCHIACEiE. 217 



XXX. PARONYCHIA FAMILY. PAEONTCHIACE^. 



Low herbs, either annual or with a perennial, sometimes 

 woody stock, and annual flowering branches, usually spreading 

 or decumbent ; opposite or rarely alternate leaves ; small, scarious 

 stipules (rarely deficient) ; and" small, often granular flowers, in 

 terminal or axillary cymes or buuclies, rarely solitary. Calyx 

 shortly or deeply divided into 5, rarely 4 or 3 lobes or seg- 

 ments. Petals either as many, inserted at the base of the 

 sepals, often minute and filiform, or none. Stamens as many 

 as the sepals, rarely fewer, inserted between the petals. Ovary 

 and capsule 1-celled. Styles or sessile stigmas 2 or 3. Seeds 

 solitary (or rarely several, on a free, central placenta, as in the 

 I'ink family), with a curved embryo, and mealy albumen. 



A small Order, widely diffused over the globe, inteiinediate, as it were, 

 between the Pink family on the one hand, and the Jmaranthus family on the 

 other. Closely allied to the small-flowered genera of the former, it differs 

 in most cases by the stipules, the solitary seeds, and the reduced petals, 

 with a tendency to a perigynous insertion, but none of these characters are 

 absolute. The Amaranthacete have the still more constantly reduced pe- 

 rianth, which places them amongst Monochlamyds. 



Leaves alternate I. Cokeighole. 



Leaves opposite. 



Calj-x with a distinct OToid or globular tube IV. Sclebanth. 



Calyx divided almost to the base. 



Flowers green. Calyx without points II. Hekniart. 



Flowers white and scarious. Calyx with 5 points III. Illeceeeusi. 



I. CORRIGIOIiE. COEEIGIOLA. 



Annuals, with alternate leaves, and small white flowers in terminal cymes. 

 Calyx of 5 divisions. Petals 5, oblong or oval. Stamens 5. Stigmas 3, 

 sessile. Seed solitary, in a small nut, enclosed in the calyx. 



Besides the British species there are two or three others in southem 

 Europe, Africa, and South America, all seacoast plants. 



1. Sand Corrigiole. Corrigiola littoralis, LLnn. 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 668. Strapioort.) 



Stems numerous, procumbent or ascending, slightly branched, slender, 

 and glabrous. Leaves linear or oblong, obtuse, tapering at the base, with a 

 minute scarious stipule on each side. Flowers crowded in little heads or 

 cymes at the ends of the branches ; the white, ovate or oblong petals barely 

 protruding beyond the calyx, whose divisions however are white and petal- 

 like on the margin, and green in the centre only. Nuts enclosed, wlien 

 riiDC, ui the scarcely enlarged calyx. 



On the sandy seashores of western and southem Europe, and northern 

 Africa, extending sparingly into the east Mediterranean region, and western 

 Asia, occurring here and there more inland m west-central Europe. In 

 Britain, confined to the coasts of Devon and Cornwall. Fl. summer and 

 autxHnn. 



