Commelina.) COMMELINACE %, 1081 
smooth or rugose; albumen floury ; embryo minute, remote from 
the hilum 
Stamens 3 perfect, with 1-3 staminodes :-— 
Cymes solitary, enclosed in spathaceous bracts ..........-+++ Commelina. 
Cymes a naked Aneilema 
Stamens 6 perfect :— 
Petals united ae in a tube; cymes scorpioid, axillary or terminal, 
with large, imbricating, 2-seriate, spathaceous bracteoles, rarely in 
exposed racemes or included axillary fascicles .........-...000 Cyanotis. 
Petals fr 
ap packs rres 
Cymes ee: in terminal or axillary, thyrsoid panicles.. nha 
975. Commelina Linn. 
Herbs, usually slender and creeping below ; leaves ovate, lanceo- 
late, or linear, with lax sheaths, petioled or not. Flowers in 
on 
a - 
Plicate, or funnel-shaped or hooded spathe; flowers of the upper 
¢yme-branch small, deciduous, of the lower fertile; fruiting pedicel 
and capsule retracted within the spathe. Sepals 8, membranous, 
the 2 inner often connate below. Petals 8, ii than sepals, 
one larger than the others and often clawed. Sta 3 perfe 
Present, l-ovuled or empty; style simple. Fruit a loculicidal 
capsule, the posterior cell sometimes indehiscent or obsolete, or 
the 2 anterior cells empty, indehiscent and connate as a li te 
body, from which the posterior cell falls away. Seeds elliptic or 
angular; testa reticulate, pitted or rugose. 
“Anterior pair of cells of the ovary 2-ovuled ; posterior cell l-oyuled or 
obsolete : 1 
tCapsule 3- celled, the two anterior cells loculicidally dehiscent, and 
each usually 2-seeded; the posterior cell keeled, 1-seeded, and 
i scent :—[p. 1082 
iLeaves lanceolate ; spathes ao the margins free or connate 
only at the very base :—[p. 1082] 
§Seeds reticulate, onic. branches of cyme 1-3-flowered ; 
Spathe sometimes cordate at base [p. 1082]............... nudiflora, 
