226 



CLASSIFICATION 



plant grows. In other words, it is a typical xero- 

 phyte. The spines also form a very effective defensive 

 armature. Many Euphorbias have the habit of the 

 Cactus, with which they are often confounded. In 

 South India a Cactus has been naturalized known 

 by the name of Cereus grandtflorus, which bears 

 showy flowers, opening at night and adapted for pol- 

 lination by night-roving insects. 

 The spines are mostly modified 

 shoots; the plants are mostly 

 xerophytes, some are epiphytic. 

 Closely allied to it is the Order 

 Ficoidece, which are -succulent 

 herbs or shrubs with opposite 

 simple leaves and flowers with 

 numerous stamens and inferior 

 many -celled ovary. The Ice- 

 plant {Mesembryanthemum crys- 

 tallinum) is so called because of 

 the water vesicles on the epider- 

 mis, which sparkle in the sun 

 like crystals of ice. 



Nat. Order i6. Umbelliferce. — 

 Herbs, rarely shrubs. Stem usu- 

 ally fistular. Leaves alternate, usually dissected; 

 petiole usually sheathing at the base. Flowers 

 usually regular, in compound rarely simple umbels. 

 Sepals connate in a superior calyx, limb 5-toothed. 

 Petals 5, epigynous, often unequal. Stamens 5, epi- 

 gynous. Ovary inferior, 2-celled, crowned by a 2- 

 lobed disk ; styles 2 ; stigmas capitate. Fruit of 2 

 carpels, syncarpous, dehiscing into 2 indehiscent seg- 

 ments (mericarps or cocci), each attached to and often 

 pendulous from a slender biforked axis or elongated 

 thalamus (carpophore) (fig. 194). The pericarp of 



Fig:. \^i,.~ Bupleurum mu~ 

 cronatum. Fruit bursting 

 into two halves or mericarps 

 {mc), hanging from two- 

 forked carpophore c. 



