Nyctaginacee—Mirabrlis. 507 
striped or blotched with two or more of these colours. West 
Indies. 
M. longiflora, a Mexican species, is remarkable for its 
long tubular fragrant viscid flowers, which vary in colour from 
white and pink to violet. There are hybrid varieties between 
this and the preceding. M. dichétoma is called Four-o’clock 
Flower in the West Indies, from the time at which its flowers 
commonly expand. 
Orper XClL—PHYTOLACCACEZ. 
Herbs or shrubs. Leaves alternate, entire, exstipulate, com- 
monly furnished with transparent dots. Flowers racemose, 
bisexual. Perianth inferior, sometimes coloured, frequently 
furnished with bracts at its base, giving it the appearance of a 
corolla; segments 4 or 5, free or slightly united. Stamens 
indefinite, or if of the same number as the perianth-segments 
alternate with them. Fruit baccate or dry, composed of a 
solitary carpel or several distinct or more or less united, each 
carpel l-seeded. Asmall order comprising about eighty species 
divided into twenty genera, mostly natives of the warmer parts 
of America. 
1. PHYTOLACCA. 
Tall branching rapid-growing robust perennials, shrubs or 
small trees. Perianth of 5 or 6 petaloid or green segments. 
Stamens 5 to 30. Fruit fleshy and juicy, composed of 5 to 12 
united carpels. There are about ten species, one or two of 
which are widely dispersed in the tropics. The generic name 
is a compound of the Greek word gurdv, a plant, and the French 
word lac, lake, in reference to the crimson juice of the fruit. 
1. Ph. decéndra. Poke-weed, .Pigeon-berry, Red-ink 
Plant.—This is a tall glabrous plant from 5 to 10 feet high 
with large ovate petiolate levves and long extra-axillary 
racemes of white flowers followed by succulent purple berries. 
Native of North America, and now naturalised in the South of 
Europe, and many other countries. 
2. Ph. icoséndra.—A dwarfer species having the stems tinged 
with red, the flowers smaller, in very slender racemes, and 
usually more than ten stamens. A native of various parts of 
South America, and rather tender in our climate. 
Ercilla spicata, syn. Bridgésia spicata, is a Chilian ever- 
green climbing shrub, in the way of Ivy, 
co] 
