80 NATURAL HISTORY OP PLANTS. 



is dry, nearly globular, indehiscent, bristling outwardly with stiff 

 prickles, armed at tbe summit with reflexed points, -which gives 

 them the appearance of little harpoons. The single seed contains 

 under its coats a large fleshy embryo whose plano-convex cotyledons 

 are prolonged at the base round the superior radicle, which they 

 incompletely surround as with a case. Krameria consists of suffru- 

 tescent plants from the tropical regions of the two Americas. 

 The broad thict-set woody root, often rich in colouring matter, is 

 surmounted by a small much ramified stem, and the branches bear 

 alternate leaves covered with a whitish down. They are exstipulate 

 and generally simple and entire. In a Mexican species, K. cyti- 

 soides,^ they are however partly compound with three folioles 

 articulate at the base. The flowers are solitary, generally supported 

 by a peduncle more or less long, bearing at a variable height, 

 sometimes close to the calyx, two sterile lateral bractlets. Some twenty- 

 five species ^ belonging to this genus have been described ; but it 

 seems to us the number ought to be reduced one-half. 



The PolygalaeecB family is very natural except one or two genera. 

 It was established in 1815 by A. L. de Jussiett.^ Until then the 

 PolygalecB had been placed by him among the Pediculairece,'^ while 

 Adanson, recognising much better their true affinities, had joined 

 them to the family Tithymaleee.^ Jtjssieu knew six of the 

 genera which we have preserved as distinct, and he joined- to them 

 Tetratheca. De Candolle ^ in 1 824 admitted the family such 

 as De Jtjssiexj had made it, adding to it Securidaca, with Sou- 

 lamea which belongs to Euiacece-Quassia.'' From 1828 to 1830, A. 

 S.-HiLAiEB and Moqtjin, inlheir Memoires sur la Famille des Poly galeae^ 

 added to the preceding types the Mundtia of Kxjnth,^ studying in 



1 Oav. Ic. Say. iv. 60, t. 390. — DC. Frodr. n. i, 76 ; iv. 240 ; vii. 255. 



7.— H. Bn. in Adansonia, xi. 16. 3 jn ]^^^ j/-„j_ ^ ggg f^polyt/akoi). 



2 R. et Pav. Prodr. t. 3 ; Fl. Per. i. t. 93, 94. 4 (jg„_ (1789), 99. 

 —Hook, et Akn. Beech. Toy. Pot. 8, t. 5.— A. s p^m. des PI. ii. (1763), 358. 

 S. H. Fl. Bras. Mer. ii. 72, t. 97.— G-eiseb. Fl. « Prodr. i. 321, Ord. 18.' 

 Brit. W. hid. 30.— Ohapm. PI,. S. Unit. St. 86. 7 Voy. vol. iv. 413 601. 



—Tore, in Pmor. Pep. Bot. t. 13.— C. Gay, Fl. » In Mem. Mus. xvii. 315 : xix. 305. 



Ghil. i. 342.— Tk. et Pl. in Ann. Sc. Sat. aer. a ^'ov. Gm. et Spec. i. (1816). 

 4, xvii. 144.— Waip. Pep. i. 247; v. 67; Ami. 



