FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS “199 
out stipules, and showy flowers, which are regular and perfect. The 
calyx is urn-shaped, 4-6-lobed, persistent and joined with the ovary 
below or with its angles. The petals, also 4-6 in number, are inserted 
with the 4-12stamens on the throat of the calyx. The ovary is 2-many- 
celled and becomes in fruit a berry or a capsule. : 
This family is mainly tropical in its distribution, being especially 
abundant in Central and South America. Only a single genus (Rhexia) 
and less than a dozen species are North American. They are perennial 
herbs, usually 1-2 feet in height, with 3-5-ribbed leaves and handsome 
terminal purple, whitish or rarely yellow flowers. They delight in 
meadows and swamps and are known popularly as meadow-beauties or 
deer-grass. 
In spite of the great number of genera and species the melastoma 
family is of no particular economic importance. It affords a number of 
showy greenhouse plants, among them certain tropical species of 
of Rhexia, species of Miconia, a large tropical American genus of shrubs 
or trees, cultivated for their large, showy, strongly veined leaves, and 
Bertolonia, a genus of dwarf shrubs from Brazil, also grown for their 
beautiful foliage. 
Family Onagraceae. Evening-primrose Family. They are annual 
or perennial herbs, rarely shrubs, with alternate or opposite exstipulate 
leaves, and axillary spikes or racemes of perfect, mostly regular flowers. 
The calyx-tube is joined to the ovary or prolonged beyond it and usually 
4-lobed. The petals are 2-9, but usually 4 in number, and inserted with 
the stamens (the same or twice as many) on the summit of the calyx-tube. 
The ovary, usually 4-celled, becomes a capsule or nut in fruit. This 
family includes about 40 genera and 350 species, of wide geographic 
distribution, but most abundant in America, there being about 30 genera 
and nearly 250 species in North America north of Mexico. Many of 
these are weeds of no particular account. Among the most interesting 
is Epilobium, the willow herbs, which spring up so quickly in ground 
recently burned over. They bear purple 4-parted flowers. Oenothera, 
the evening primrose, is a small genus of low herbs with showy, 4-parted 
yellow flowers. Allied to this are several genera bearing very large, 
showy, white, pink or yellow flowers. Among the plants of this family 
in cultivation Fuchsia is pre-eminent. It is a genus of 60 or 70 species, 
the greater part from tropical America, but with 3 or 4 in New Zealand. 
They are known to us mainly as tender herbs or sub-shrubs, but in their 
native countries they are shrubs and one, Fuchsia excorticata, of New Zea- 
land, is a tree 30-40 feet in height. The number of forms in cultivation 
is very great, but they have apparently been produced by hybridizing a 
relatively small number of species. 
Family Haloragidaceae. Water-milfoil Family. A small family of 
