FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS. 89 
red. The fiowers are subtended by scales or bracts, and are unisexual 
and monoecious, the staminate and pistillate occurring on the same 
plant. There is usually a small perianth consisting of a single series 
(calyx), but even this is sometimes wanting. Some of these plants 
are much sought on account of their supposed medicinal virtues; this 
is particularly true of Cynomorium coccineum, a south European plant 
which on the Island of Malta was formerly carefully guarded, and its 
growth and gathering supervised by a person specially appointed to 
that office under the English government. Various species of Bala- 
nophora furnish a sort of wax which is used by the natives of Java for. 
making candles. 
CHAPTER XVI. 
Orders Aristolochiales and Polygonales. - 
The order Aristolochiales includes three families. The group is 
distinguished by the perianth, which although strictly a calyx, is very 
Fic. 74.—The Goose-flower (Aristolochia fetens) and leaf; both one-half 
natural size. Original. 
often showily colored like a corolla; it is either cup-shaped and regular 
or tubular and very irregular in shape. The ovary is inferior, and 
several-celled instead of one-celled as in the Santalales. 
