108 LINAGES. 



valved al the apex, or, when completely ten-celled, separating 

 into ten one-seeded indehiscent cocci, leaving no central axis. 

 Seed suspended, oval or obovate, compressed, with a smooth 

 coriaceous testa. Embryo straight or nearly so, more or less 

 surrounded by thin mucilaginous or fleshy albumen : coty- 

 ledons plane, fleshy, foliaceous in germination, their edges 

 directed to the axis of the fruit : radicle superior. 



Herbs, or sufl"ruticose plants, with slender and rigid stems, 

 entire and sessile usually veinless oblong or linear leaves, 

 which are alternate or irregular, opposite or verticillate, with- 

 out stipules, but often with a pair of glands in their place. 

 Flowers paniculate-cymose, usually secund ; the peduncles 

 opposite the leaves or bracts, or extra-axillary, articulated 

 under the calyx. Corolla blue, yellow, or white, ephemeral. 



Etymology. The classical Greek and Latin name of the Flax, and of 

 the thread made from it. 



Properties, &c. These haA'e been mentioned in the account of the order. 



PLATE 143. LiNUM Virginianum, Linn.; — summit of a stem in flower 

 and fruit, of the natural size. 



1. Diagram of the aestivation, with a section of the ten-celled ovary. 



2. Two of the stamens seen from within, with a part of the monadelphous 



ring, showing the scarcely apparent rudiments of the interposed 

 sterile filaments ; magnified. 



3. Pistil, the ovary vertically divided, showing the ovules, magnified. 



4. An ovule detached and more magnified. 



5. Capsule with the persistent calyx, magnified. 



6. A transverse section of the same, more magnified (10-coccous). 



7. A magnified seed (inverted, the hilum turned downward). 



8. Vertical section of the same, displaying the embryo and the sparing 



albumen. 



9. LiNUM PERENNE, Liuu. ; — magnified transverse section of the calyx 



and (five-celled) ovary. 



10. Flower of the same, with the calyx and corolla removed ; showing the 



teeth which represent the sterile filaments, the introrse stigmas, &c. 



11. LiNUM Berlandieri, Hook. ; — a flower, of the natural size. 



12. A glandular-fringed sepal, and 13. a petal, of the same, seen from 



within. 

 14. The stamens and pistil (styles united), with the hypogynous glands, 

 &c., enlarged ; the calyx and corolla removed. 



